我們可能認為，在我們的文化中，壹看到嶄新的事物就會摒棄我們的舊技術，但壹項新的研究表明，當舊設備過時了之後我們仍然繼續使用。這對於環境和我們的錢包來說是個壞消息，因為這些過時的設備做同樣的事情要比新設備消耗更多的能源。
To figure out how much power these devices are using, Callie Babbitt and her colleagues at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York tracked the environmental costs for each product throughout its life — from when its minerals are mined to when we stop using the device. This method provided a readout for how home energy use has evolved since the early 1990s. Devices were grouped by generation. Desktop computers, basic mobile phones, and box-set TVs defined 1992. Digital cameras arrived on the scene in 1997. And MP3 players, smart phones, and LCD TVs entered homes in 2002, before tablets and e-readers showed up in 2007.
為了弄清楚這些設備的耗電量，紐約羅切斯特理工學院的卡莉·巴比特和她的同事跟蹤了每種產品在其整個生命周期內造成的環境代價——從原料開采到停止使用該設備。這壹方法提供了自20世紀90年代初以來家庭能源使用的變化數據。不同的年代出現了不同的設備。臺式計算機、最初的移動電話和盒式電視定義了1992年。1997年，數碼相機問世。2002年MP3播放器、智能手機和液晶電視進入家庭，2007年平板電腦和電子閱讀器問世。
As we accumulated more devices, however, we didn't throw out our old ones. "The living-room television is replaced and gets planted in the kids' room, and suddenly one day, you have a TV in every room of the house," said one researcher. The average number of electronic devices rose from four per household in 1992 to 13 in 2007. We're not just keeping these old devices — we continue to use them. According to the analysis of Babbitt's team, old desktop monitors and box TVs with cathode ray tubes are the worst devices with their energy consumption and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions more than doubling during the 1992 to 2007 window.
然而，當我們積累了更多的設備時，我們並沒有扔掉我們的舊設備。壹位研究人員說：“客廳的電視更換後放在孩子們的房間裏，突然有壹天，家裏每個房間都有壹臺電視”。每個家庭擁有的電子設備平均數量從1992年的4臺增加到2007年的13臺。我們不僅保留了這些舊設備，我們還繼續使用它們。根據巴比特團隊的分析，舊的臺式顯示器和帶有陰極射線管的盒式電視是最糟糕的設備，它們的能耗和溫室氣體排放量都很高，在1992年至2007年期間增加了壹倍多。
So what's the solution? The team's data only went up to 2007, but the researchers also explored what would happen if consumers replaced old products with new electronics that serve more than one function, such as a tablet for word processing and TV viewing. They found that more on-demand entertainment viewing on tablets instead of TVs and desktop computers could cut energy consumption by 44%.
那麽解決方案是什麽呢？該團隊的數據僅持續到2007年，但研究人員還探討了如果消費者使用具有多種功能的新電子產品（如用於文字處理和電視觀看的平板電腦）取代舊產品會發生什麽情況。他們發現，用平板電腦上代替電視和臺式電腦觀看更多的娛樂點播節目，可以減少44%的能耗。