What Are Pixels?

The term "pixel" is a contraction for "picture element". In other words, pixels are the little dots that make up the glowing image you're staring at right now. They may seem harmless, but read on to discover why pixels are far more dangerous than they appear!

Pixels may start any color, but escaped pixels quickly tarnish, typically turning gray or brown. Individually, single escaped pixels are unnoticeable, but can be seen where they congregate.

The Scope of the Problem

Pixels are very small. In fact, if you're like me and run your system at a resolution of 800 by 600, there are 480,000 of them in front of you right now! On average, they're no more than 0.28 mm across, so they don't take up much space. But what they lack in size, they make up for in numbers!

Thankfully, most of these pixels stay trapped within your monitor and are automatically recycled. Today's power-saving monitors are even better at this than those of the early digital days, but the sheer number of monitors being made offsets this advantage. You see, a few pixels escape from your monitor. You never notice this, as they are replaced quickly, usually within 1/60 of a second. But what happens to the escaped pixels?

Typically, escaped pixels cluster on the monitor screen. The reasons for this are unclear, but some researchers -- both of them, in fact -- believe it has something to do with the pixels' affinity for the large number that remain within the tube. But when you shut off the monitor, something I admittedly rarely do, or even when the monitor enters power-save mode, no more pixels are sent to the screen. The escaped pixels then are attracted to anything remotely pixellic, including but not limited to:

Other pixel-containing screens (TV, monitor)
Things that superficially look like screens (microwave ovens)
Light sources (lamps, display units)
Your hair (it looks like a pixel if you look at it lengthwise!)

Pixels are fairly heavy, which helps explain why they do not typically head toward the sun. If a pixel can't find anything nearby that's attractive enough, it will typically settle wherever it happens to be until it is disturbed. Once a few settle in an area, this is enough to attract others, and it doesn't take long for objects to become completely covered by them!

How You Can Help

Spreading the Word

Please pass the URL for this site along to those you love. Pixels are rapidly becoming one of the leading causes of allergies, and contribute greatly to the problem of air pollution. Pixels gather on your car, and you wash them off. They flow into storm drains and out to the ocean, where they add to the pollution problem there as well! Large numbers of pixels have been determined to cause cancer in laboratory animals! (Incidentally, so did reruns of Seinfeld.)

Do not try to warn the world alone! You will do no good from a padded cell. Instead, refer them here, and we'll put them in contact with some of the finest trolling minds the 'Net has to offer! We have science on our side!

Pixel Pollution: Join The Solution!