We may think we're a culture that gets rid of our worn technology at the first sight of something shiny and new, but a new study shows that we keep using our old devices well after they go out of style. That’s bad news for the environment — and our wallets — as these outdated devices consume much more energy than the newer ones that do the same things.
我们可能认为，在我们的文化中，一看到崭新的事物就会摒弃我们的旧技术，但一项新的研究表明，当旧设备过时了之后我们仍然继续使用。这对于环境和我们的钱包来说是个坏消息，因为这些过时的设备做同样的事情要比新设备消耗更多的能源。

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.
为了弄清楚这些设备的耗电量，纽约罗切斯特理工学院的卡莉·巴比特和她的同事跟踪了每种产品在其整个生命周期内造成的环境代价——从原料开采到停止使用该设备。这一方法提供了自20世纪90年代初以来家庭能源使用的变化数据。不同的年代出现了不同的设备。台式计算机、最初的移动电话和盒式电视定义了1992年。1997年，数码相机问世。2002年MP3播放器、智能手机和液晶电视进入家庭，2007年平板电脑和电子阅读器问世。

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，当我们积累了更多的设备时，我们并没有扔掉我们的旧设备。一位研究人员说：“客厅的电视更换后放在孩子们的房间里，突然有一天，家里每个房间都有一台电视”。每个家庭拥有的电子设备平均数量从1992年的4台增加到2007年的13台。我们不仅保留了这些旧设备，我们还继续使用它们。根据巴比特团队的分析，旧的台式显示器和带有阴极射线管的盒式电视是最糟糕的设备，它们的能耗和温室气体排放量都很高，在1992年至2007年期间增加了一倍多。

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%.
那么解决方案是什么呢？该团队的数据仅持续到2007年，但研究人员还探讨了如果消费者使用具有多种功能的新电子产品（如用于文字处理和电视观看的平板电脑）取代旧产品会发生什么情况。他们发现，用平板电脑上代替电视和台式电脑观看更多的娱乐点播节目，可以减少44%的能耗。