January 4th, 2021
Nature Deprivation Disorder is thought to be a serious problem for humans. Nature deficit disorder is a phrase coined by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child in the Wood . He thought that human beings, especially children, were spending less time outdoors resulting in a wide range of behavioral problems.
What is the reality of this perceived condition? If you believe the contention put forth by Mr. Louv, humans are less exposed to the natural world and are also exposed to constant negative media influences that let them feel unsafe about the outside world causing them to shun imaginative and exploratory activity outside in nature.
Both of these statements appear true to me. When I think back to my childhood, there was a huge difference in our outdoor unsupervised play compared to what I see now. Most children now play in playdates, school environments, and organized sporting events if they play at all. Parent and teacher directed activities will most likely drive the child's thinking instead of self driven imaginitive thought unless the teacher is leading a self directed event.
The consequences of unimaginative play can be that a child loses the imaginative side of their learning that stimulates exploratory investigation as they age. Unimaginative learning falls in line with today's wrote memorization and "teach to the test" primary and medical schools producing a generation of non thinkers. When a person learns that the answer exists and they just need to follow a previously produced answer, there is no room for growth. The master should only be the master until the student surpasses. Medicine is the classic arena where answers perceived to be true yesterday are proven wrong or different tomorrow. For the physicians of the future to have this mentality is not inline with humanities best interest.
If we believe that being out in the woods with nature, friends and the unknown is good for us, then where is the proof? Unfortunately, there is no definitive proof, but there are studies looking at all of the variables and the data points to this being an issue. For me, it is simple, do I really need a study to tell me that moving and observing the outdoors is better than sitting indoors on the computer or TV? I think not.
Children can learn an enormous amount of information from mother nature just through observation. Nature's scientific and sociologic education can persist throughout their lives. I think of a book that I read, Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez, where the book's drone technology applications mirrored the actions of ants and how they swarm around food or prey based on pheromones. We have so much to learn from the natural world and children are great at doing just that as they do not have a hard drive of preconceived beliefs that jade their perception.
For these reasons and many others, I am a firm believer in outdoor play and learning from infancy on. Not to mention that the outdoor play exposes these young beings to bacteria that help prime and build their immune systems to be tolerant.
Dr. M
