One of the goals set by the EU for 2050 is the ‘twin green & digital transition’. However, digital technologies account for 4% of global carbon emissions, which is almost twice as much as the aviation industry. And yet to many, the impact of digital media on the environment still remains abstract. How can cold numbers and facts be made more relatable or emotionally more engaging?

In the style of an 80s Jane Fonda aerobics workout, participants switched between colourful weights in accordance to the corresponding CO2 emissions of digital activities (such as sending emails), and used other exercises probs like elastics to stretch their bandwidth and kettlebell weights to represent heavier files, such as videos or large PDF attachments.

An additional mobile gym station places an educational video in front of the user. The video starts out rather pixelated and only becomes sharper as visitors continue to pull weights – as if generating the electricity needed for a higher video resolution with your own bodily energy.

How much CO2 does an average email generate? How many push-ups would it take to grasp the energy consumed by AI models like GPT-4? Our workout lecture unfolded in several chapters, beginning with the early days of the internet, then exploring the increase in traffic and file sharing with the advent of search engines and new platforms, and culminating in our growing dependence on data centers. Other chapters focused on office work culture and the environmental impact of keeping old files in cloud storage.

To explore the gym metaphor more collaboratively, we hosted a workshop with researchers at Creative Media for Social Change. There, we exchanged about digital media habits, discussed questions of ethics and responsibility, and worked in groups to get hands-on when designing mediation concepts based on the gym metaphor.

The interactive workout provided a playful entry point to ‘sustainability in technology’ and introduced a new perspective to this topic. As the Media Gym and workouts travelled across three different locations on campus, it kick-off a conversation across departments between researchers and students alike – all while providing a fun, embodied group experience. Various Amsterdam-based news media covered the events. Following the articles published, users on X engaged in a critical discussion about whose responsibility these emissions are to bear? Can we really blame students for watching one hour of Netflix, or is that even comparable to the scale of activities by large tech companies?