Technology Is Changing Our Relationship With Nature as We Know It

Adrienne Matei · Quartz · August 8, 2017

Interview with Peter Kahn, Nature and Health researcher and Steering Committee member

University of Washington psychology professor Peter Kahn has spent much of his career analyzing the relationship humans have with nature—and he thinks that relationship is more fragile than many of us realize.

Kahn works to understand the intersection of two modern phenomena: the destruction of nature, and the growth of technology. As UW’s director of the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems Lab (HINTS), Khan researches humans in relation to both real nature and “technological nature”: digital representations of the wild, such as nature-focused documentaries, video games, and VR simulations.

Technological nature has its benefits; engaging with it makes us feel good by triggering our innate “biophilia,” a term for humanity’s inborn, primordial affiliation with the environment. For example, researchers have found that nature videos played in prisons drastically reduce violence amongst inmates, suggesting nature’s relaxing influence translates through screens. Studies have also found that watching Planet Earth brings viewers joy and markedly lowers anxiety, and that workers in offices with plasma-screen “windows” that play livestreams of the outdoors are happier and more productive than their counterparts working in rooms without any windows at all.