Study Says Sitting on the Couch Watching Netflix Is Good for the Environment
Get ready for the best news in the history of the universe: Staying home in your jammies to binge on Netflix is officially good for Mother Earth.
That’s according to a study published in the journal Joule, which found that chilling on your couch and streaming your favorite shows uses up less energy than going out for your entertainment.
Researchers discovered that Americans are increasingly spending more time at home (eight days more in 2012 than in 2003), leading to a 1.8 percent decrease in our national energy consumption. Interestingly, energy use went down even though we’re spending more time (nearly four hours more) watching TV and using computers now than we did in 2003. But staying in also means less car travel and energy use in nonresidential buildings, say researchers.
The study suggests that the reason why we’re all becoming homebodies is mainly due to increased working from home, streaming shows and movies and computer use.
Translation? You need to ask your boss for more work-from-home days. And stop feeling guilty about your ever-growing Netflix queue.
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