Is 64 bits less efficient than 32 bit when 64 is not required?

Question

I was wondering what "64 bit" actually means, and when I started looking into it, the more vague and unclear the entire topic seems to be. There are no hard and set rules here, everything is "may use" and "is capable of". Unless you need 64 bits for a specialist reason, is it true that using a 32 bit (if not lower) system or program would be far more efficient, because most of the bits in the 64 bits will be empty anyways?

Answer 1

Here's a video that might help slightly. Might be good to remember 64 bit is compatible with 32 bit and 32 bit is NOT compatible with 64bit. A bit has to do with binary (computer language) and it can have 2 values (0 or 1). The computer takes multiple bits and connects them into chunks called bytes and we use these bytes to talk to the computer using programming. bits are standard 1,2,4,8,16,32,64 values and all modern programming languages need to be translated into bits before actually being used by the computer to run the program.

more resources: https://www.computerhope.com/jargon/b/bit.htm 32bit vs 64bit>