A few hours ago I was lost in Google Earth on a virtual flight over Oregon, flying from the new Badlands Wilderness Area near Bend to a coastal old growth forest that’s critical habitat for the Marbled Murrelet.
I get a kick from a virtual helicopter ride over Mt. St. Helens, and from webcams taking me to exotic places around the world that I will probably never see in person.
But as cool as technology can be, comes a reminder today that it’s no substitute for the real thing. It may even be harmful.
Peter Kahn is a University of Washington developmental psychologist who, for years, has studied our need to be connected with nature and how those connections are fading away. His latest research looks at how we interact with virtual nature.
A college student looks at a plasma screen showing a natural scene. The same view through a window was more effective in lowering people's heart recovery rate. Courtesy University of Washington.
In one example, Kahn’s team subjected people to a low level stress test and then gave them three “scenes” to look at. They included a blank wall, a high definition television image of nature, or the same natural scene through a window. The researchers measured heart rates to see how quickly people recovered from the stress event.
Those who got the window view recovered faster and more deeply. For the other subjects, the HDTV version of nature was no better than the blank wall.
Kahn and his team are concerned that our growing entanglement with technology contributes to what they call, “environmental generational amnesia.” That’s the concept which says people believe the natural world they grew up with is normal, no matter how badly degraded it really is.
“How many people today feel a loss such as the damming of the Columbia River compared to a wild Columbia River?” asks researcher Rachel Severson. “A lot of us have no concept of it as a wild river and don’t feel a loss.”
For children today who’s main experience of the environment comes through technology, the “amnesia effect” can be even worse. “People might think that if technological nature is partly good that that’s good enough,” sats Kahn. “But it’s not. Because across generations what will happen is that the good enough will become the good. If we don’t change course, it will impoverish us as a species.”
This research is in the current issue of the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science.
Good story!
And strangely timely — The Gray Family Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation hosted an all-day seminar/workshop today at the Oregon Zoo for and with folks from around the state who are passionate about connecting kids to the natural world — to share ideas about capacity and long term sustainability of these programs. Do you know if that journal article is free and accessible for all?
I couldn’t agree more. In fact, if I had my way, I’d smash my youngest (25) daughter’s I Phone with a hammer. She spends hours inside playing with it instead of being out in nature with the birds and the skies overhead.
Here’s a link to the full article online.
The Human Relation With Nature and Technological Nature