Outdoor update

In May 2014 I published an online article (blog post), the contents of which were expanded in my book Network Nature: The Place of Nature in the Digital Age (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). The title of the online article was “Nature deficiency disorder” #193.

It included 9 reasons people might feel nature settings offer benefits. My 9 points covered solitude and sociability, stewardship and exertion, knowledge and risk, as well as the value of contrast between safety and danger, familiarity and the unknown.

ChatGPT helped me with that summary, and added the suggestion that my points indicate how nature engages us physically, emotionally and cognitively, inviting movement, cooperation, contemplation, sensory immersion, play, curiosity “and even mild peril.”

In its summary I think the AI reflected the bias in the nature literature: “In the end, the argument is that nature’s benefits may not derive from any single factor, but from the rich bundling together of many experiences that contribute to resilience, recovery and a heightened sense of being alive.”

In that article and two others before it (Go outside and play #194 and Refuge #195) I wanted to withdraw from the language of “richness” and “being alive” and look critically at the pro-nature literature, especially in so far as it ignores or criticises the role of technology.

I commend a reading or re-reading of those articles. I stand by them. I also thought of a couple more “benefits” of nature.

10. Fear of missing out. Warm sunny days are considered special in the UK. People stress the need to get into an outdoor nature setting and make the most of the pleasant weather conditions. That factor was less important when I lived in Australia where we took the possibility of spending time outdoors for granted.

11. Body signs. Nature settings provide access to sunlight and other factors that induce changes to skin colour and texture, which in many cultural contexts signal that the human body has participated in or avoided activities in nature settings. Skin and hair conditions constitute important social signals for some. Changes can indicate participation in or avoidance of sports, manual work, outdoor leisure, and attitudes to health and personal care. Think of ski and beach tans.

The roles of digital communication technologies in mediating nature’s “benefits” have developed since 2014, and include broadcasting one’s participation in nature settings via social media, blogs and photo-sharing. I can plan and navigate my nature walks aided by the Ordnance Survey app on my smartphone.

AI-enabled search engines offer prescient advice on travel arrangements, avoiding conditions adverse to skin health, treating insect bites and allergies, identifying plants, animals, geology and birdsong, weather forecasting, citizen science wildlife monitoring, stargazing, professional scientific surveys, mapping and other aids and impediments to engaging with nature — as we choose.

I punctuated this writing with frequent periods working on garden tasks — watering, tending plants, collecting rocks, reinforcing the bank of the boundary burn. That’s evidence of the levelling of writing and doing in the orbit “of the natural.”

Ambiguity and incompetence

Reluctantly I also asked chatGPT if I had left anything important from this update. It reminded me that one implication of AI-enabled identification of plants, birdsong and geology is that AI changes the mode of attention brought to nature. Earlier forms of nature appreciation often stressed patient observation, uncertainty, gradual acquisition of knowledge, “and even amateur incompetence.”

It posited that AI systems increasingly reduce ambiguity immediately: point the phone at a flower, bird or insect and receive an answer in seconds. The experience shifts from exploratory encounter to assisted recognition: “That is neither wholly good nor bad, but it changes the temporality and texture of outdoor engagement.” The AI also offered the provocation that “Nature becomes algorithmically pre-curated,” amongst other helpful insights.

It also reminded me of the sobering “paradox” that AI systems depend materially on energy-intensive data centres, mineral extraction, satellite systems, sensor networks which bear directly on environmental questions: “The technologies that help us appreciate nature are themselves implicated in ecological transformation.”

Notes

• The featured image shows one outdoor activity: repurposing an old cabin trunk as a garden planter.
• My AI advisor suggested that midweek posting is better for exposure to search engines and potential readers. I’ll give it a go.