We’ve talked about this often enough in class – nature does something for us that urban surroundings just can’t lay a hand on. Depending on the topic, we’ve discussed how people’s health has benefited from it or how they’ve felt better just by being in nature. And it’s really not surprising because we’ve all had an experience like that; a calming walk through the park after midterms, sitting under a tree in the shade and feeling relaxed. Pretty dope. And this paper just proves all these things by going deeper into nature’s psychological effects on us.
Environmental psychology seems to be a budding, yet necessary field in a world where more than half the world lives in cities. Research showed that by being able to look at nature from office windows, workers had higher degrees of well-being and life satisfaction, which in turn can mean higher productivity and an all-around happier work place. It would be highly beneficial for companies to be located near greenspaces, have greenspaces inside their buildings, or be financially supportive of green initiatives because it would ultimately boost their own profits.
It’s the exact same thing with the situation with the kids. Being outside helped them do better on memory tests, have better coordination and concentration. I feel like this is phenomenally important since we’re in that weird generation that’s had the best of both world. We had the playing outside type of childhood our parents had, but we also had the dawn of the computer age that drew us inside. Playing outside and going to parks helped our mental development and health according to this article. But what about a lot of the kids today who only know sitting inside and playing on their iPad? I think they’re going to have a lot more problems and difficulties than we had at their age.
The experiment, in general was well-thought out with their use of an urban walk v. a nature walk because it allowed for them to have a wealth of information for comparison. Nature walks decreased anxiety and any negative effects while increasing positive ones. They also performed better on cognitive tasks. This reminds me of that saying when it comes to friendships – you can’t hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life. Well, we can’t live in a negative urban area without nature and expect to have a great life. This article proves that theory is a total bust.
