Should people who are worried about the environment feel bad about using the internet? Maybe not, one study suggests. Scientists have found that the way we manage data uses less energy than they once thought.

Data, or information, is often processed and stored on a computer. A computer that provides data to other computers is called a server. Servers also store data such as videos, pictures and emails. A building that holds many servers is known as a data center. Without servers and data centers, we could not access websites on our own computers and phones every day.

Some reports have found that data centers could use enormous amounts of electricity in the next 10 years. Electricity often is produced by burning fuels that heat up the atmosphere and change Earth's climate.

However, in February 2020, scientists released a study in the journal Science. They found that the demand for data centers has grown 550 percent in the past eight years. However, the energy that is needed to power those data centers only grew by 6 percent.

This study gives the most reliable number for the amount of energy used by data centers around the world, said George Kamiya. He is an expert at the International Energy Agency in Paris, France.