Current really isn't flowing through the air. The relevant equation for resistive materials is J = sigma E; J is current density, E is the electric field, and sigma is resistivity. Air's resistivity is huge - if you pump any significant current through air you will cause arcing.
What really happens when you transmit energy through air is charge accumulation. Think of a parallel-plate capacitor - electrons accumulate on one side of the plate and holes on the other side. If you draw a black box around the system, it looks like current is flowing through it. But no significant current is actually going through the dielectric, or you will ruin the capacitor.
Electrical engineers model the phenomenon that Veritasium pointed out as capacitive coupling. In a circuit diagram, we would literally just draw an additional capacitor in between the relevant circuit elements.
In DC, this doesn't really matter after a certain settling time because the capacitor has settled to a certain charge. But in AC (or DC right after you flip the switch) it is non-negligible.
Edited to add - to be clear, there IS an electric field in the air - but the current density is negligible unless you've caused dielectric breakdown.
What really happens when you transmit energy through air is charge accumulation. Think of a parallel-plate capacitor - electrons accumulate on one side of the plate and holes on the other side. If you draw a black box around the system, it looks like current is flowing through it. But no significant current is actually going through the dielectric, or you will ruin the capacitor.
Electrical engineers model the phenomenon that Veritasium pointed out as capacitive coupling. In a circuit diagram, we would literally just draw an additional capacitor in between the relevant circuit elements.
In DC, this doesn't really matter after a certain settling time because the capacitor has settled to a certain charge. But in AC (or DC right after you flip the switch) it is non-negligible.
Edited to add - to be clear, there IS an electric field in the air - but the current density is negligible unless you've caused dielectric breakdown.