Are Humans Losing Touch with Nature?

Camping, hiking, horse riding, canoeing, photography, climbing, kayaking and skinnydipping is fun. Even if you do get a few mesquito bites. Take some DEET.

Amazing picture! It looks like dancing silhouette..

i think there is a misconception between the outdoors and nature

nope. how can we loose touch with something that everything is?

Humans are a part of nature, electricity and houses and computers are all natural!

Yes I agree. I run to the wilderness I find refuge their.

In the woods, I am Lost and Found. Hidden from the rest of the world but in the open to her, the mother of all things, the wind, and water, sun, and grass , sky blue, and cloud white, Dirt brown. Freedom in my hands, In the woods.

I wrote that.

While I do believe humans have lost touch with nature, it's not because of virtual tours of the Grand Canyon, or robotic pets. What kid would rather have a robot pet than a real one? But not all kids can, so a robotic one can substitute. And virtual tours of places around the world help people who would otherwise be unable to see them. Not everyone has the money to go on a vacation like that. But I guess that's too obvious and simple for a psychologist.

nature : having sex in the woods . that's my style .

Everything we do is nature, because we are nature. Factories are nature. Smoke is nature. Cars are nature. Pollution is nature. Electric grids are nature. We are nature.

The question that should be posed is "are we losing touch with what is GOOD?"

I spent 7 years of my life working as a wilderness guide. And true confession, didn't find out about the .com boom till years later. Part of that time I was working with you at risk, and witnessed first hand the healing that can occur when you disconnect from the buzz and hum of the technological word and spend some time deeply connecting to the natural elements. For many years I resisted technology (don't tell my boss :), but now I see the great irony that it may be the saving grace: it's all about connection right?

This I will say though, the more time I spend in front of this computer: the more time I HAVE to spend outdoors. It's the one place I go where my brain can relax and play with new ideas. Thanks for the post.

YES!

The photo is very cool.

It is just as easy to romanticize an urban landscape as it is to romanticize "nature".

People forget that nature created us. Everything we do that is human, is natural. People trying to "preserve nature" over human evolution is unnatural.

Dude... I obsess over tech more than what's healthy but I still go outside.

Can I not be walking my dog on a trail in the woods while at the same time texting on my phone???

I personally get a lot of inspiration from hanging out on the beach and it helps to do graphic design on a laptop at the same as watching the ocean.

Yes! Leave your cellphones, ipods, Twitter and other crap at home for a few hours of your life and get outside! (she says while on the computer.) It's raining like crazy in NY today but I swear this weekend I'm going hiking no matter what!

"it's why I'm Wiccan."

It's pretty well known that I'm an atheist but I studied (and to some extent, practiced) eclectic Wicca for a long time. Wicca struck a chord with me because of it's respect for the earth and nature. If there is real magick to be found in this world, it's in the forest. When you are surrounded by the majesty of nature, hiking through the woods, listening only to the sounds around you- that is a very special feeling that can't be recreated by any technology.

Last year my dad and I hiked around this lake that was thawing out. The ice was bending and breaking, sending sounds into the entire forest. It was like listening to a song- totally incredible.

I'm all psyched now to get out into the wild!

yes

I like this article - and love that picture!!!

Also, people on here are saying going green is going back to nature - I would strongly disagree - if you had a robot to plant you're trees, you're not experiencing nature - you're only benefiting from what it has to offer you.

I would argue that nature, in its most pure form, is the absence of technology all together.

it's why I'm Wiccan.

I get all the nature I need from Animal Planet!

i can't believe all the ppl who are saying eff camping. get out there and you will have a much deeper appreciation for nature. ya mosquitos suck, and the ticks around here are even worse. but being in the elements brings you back to the real essence of life. stop pampering yourselves and get dirty, scraped up, and smelly. it's quite fun. btw cool photo

kcfoxie, check out eta's comment, my son runs around the park everyday. It helps keep his stamina up to get through 2 jobs and school. He gets exercise and gets his outdoor fix. I used to pack up all the kids(mine and my neices and nephews) and dogs and head out to the local public lake park and walk/run around the lakes. The youngest dictated my speed, and I gave each a partner with orders to not let go of your partners hand as well as the most responsible one the order to make sure they're all together.
We sometimes turned it into a nature walk learning all the native plants and animal prints.
It doesn't have be for more than 20 min. to an hour. And if you do it regularly it will go more smoothly with practice. It doesn't even need to be a large park. It doesn't need to be every week.The fun is in the little details and the togetherness they'll never forget as well as the nature appreciation..

Just got back from camping, had a blast, though its stills pretty cold here at night. I used to camp a lot, the last few years though, my life has become more and more centered around my PC. Camping this time was different, as was the last time i went to the ocean, i had a harder time relaxing.

I hope over the course of this summer i can reclaim some of my connection with nature, i miss the peace it once gave me.

I've already been camping 9x this year... get out, bonfire, bbq, and go smoke one in nature!

Some of my favorite places in the continental US for backpacking/hiking:

Glacier NP in Montana. (I prefer the eastern side of the continental line)

Acadia NP and also Mt Kahtadin in Maine.

Adirondacks in NY

The Grand Tetons in Wyoming
(there are trails that are not on the map that you can talk to a ranger to find. great for getting away from people)

Yosemite NP in CA
Sequoia & Kings Canyon in CA
(these places in CA are great if you can get off the highway trails and away from other people.)

Joshua Tree NP in CA is AMAZING in the winter if you like the desert or if you like to rock climb.

North Cascades NP in WA, beautiful area not far from Seattle.
Rainer NP and Olympia NP in WA are also very nice.

I'm sure there's other equally amazing places that I haven't been yet, but these are some of my personal favorites.

I would like to recommend a book to anyone who wishes to learn more of our connection to nature. They are not new nor are they aged. The first is Galactic Alignment, then Faces in the Smoke, and the last (which i admire the most) is named Food of the Gods. If you have an open mind to many possibilities, you will be able to understand our true connection to our planet and universe. I also recommend reading them outside and not in a confined place.

there is no substitute for getting out into nature... walking / hiking / damping / whatever.

If we didn't need to do it, we wouldn't be drawn to the technological substitutes in the first place, which in my opinion are not replacements for an authentic experience in nature.

One of my favorite childhood activties was running through the woods, up and down hills and gullies, around tree roots the warm air causing my long hair to fly behind me. Those woods are now condominiums and townhomes. The locals could not stop the progress.
Even the local park leveled the paths for omni stone walkways so they are W/C accessable.
It's no longer the same invigorating walk it once was. In fact I rarely go now, it's boring. I introduced as many kids to nature as possible even if it was a short Wendy's bag lunch on a blanket at a local fishing hole where psychodelic footed coots roamed about.
I truely hope and think we must continue to encourage out door appreciation and activities.
In our downtown neighborhood three of us have brought native trees and bushes as well, as bulbs and perennials into our small block. They soften the parking lots and apt. complexes.

i try to run on the trail everyday. theres one near my house. and i always wonder when i see ppl walking it or running...why wear headphones and blast electro?
it's counterintuitive.
and with aesthetics and visual sensory becoming more heightened, constructively, i realized the touch we've lost with nature is listening. our meta-auditory ability has been degraded and saturated. the touch of music, truly. we keep adding Time into our mind but aren't adding Space to balance it. there's a wholeness to the open interaction of nature.

who else hates having to say say that word "nature"?

when we walk in nature we get the answers to everything..

personally, i am getting more connected with nature every day. i love it. i feel a true sense of purpose, and a connection with God when I'm out in nature. in the woods hiking and following along streams and observing the perfect beautiful balance of God's creation.

yes

do they know that rivers are made up of snowflakes
and rain drops, i suspect not, or every drop of water flowing by, in the mass of churning destiney,has taken every form a tree, a tear, a human. long on its corse it has chewed through mountains and greened mountain medows, but to us it has fed us.

no i think humans are missing the point the nature of it all.

thank you for the post.

duh.
articles like these are on par with things like self-help books or how to live healthy guides.
we have lost common sense.
and we don't realize that most of these things are the foundations of humanity itself. duh.
scientism has run its course. contemporary psychology is kinda a joke. and generally speaking, most kids majoring or are in these particular fields aren't the brightest of our lot. but there needs to be reformations in everything we do. a little more soulpower wouldn't hurt psycho-analysis.
it's all been said, written and expressed long before. and with more simple eloquence and profundity.
repackaging and illusions of newness and originality are gravediggers.
BUT
the quantification of things via scientific method will always be behind in the true estimation of the collective esteem and a culture's sentiment. only communications of art can duly express this space-time causation. the luminaries and artisans of our generation get it, and these day-to-day ideals which we are striving toward and gradually embodying, have the return to nature in view. a new kind of nature. one with a compromise in context where science and its outbranchings are enabler, but not the end itself.
everything we need is already here.
maybe a little more Hesse and little less paluhniak.

its not gonna matter after all the rainforest are gone..... they dont call them the lungs of the earth for nothing.
~~beautifull tree picture tho~~!

My Favorite times are when I'm out in the woods or at a lake...

I like camping! Don't be such pussies, it's just the woods!

I love technology and spend a lot of time on the internet (OBVIOUSLY!!!) but seriously I am making it my goal this Spring/Summer to go hiking at least once a week as well as plant a garden. I don't want to lose touch with nature; every time I'm in the forest I feel something I can't quite explain and I never want to remove myself from that.

Nature is so amazing and we still have a lot to learn from it. Let's not forget it or leave it behind in our quest for progress!

er...isn't it the opposite. pushing for renewable energy, saving our nature preserves, fighting global warming, ending our reliance on fossil fuels, the well spring of small scale planting and indigenous reforesting taking place around the world. I always thought of the 80's as the time when people truly lost touch with nature. but most of my information from the 80's comes from that movie "The Warriors"

I think we are starting to come OUT of the time of losing touch with nature.

besides...who honestly likes camping? you're either cold or you're being attacked by mosqitoes and regardless you're likely to end up with a spider on your face when you wake up. fuck camping indeed.

Humanity, particularly here in the West, has for the last 60 years become more and more removed from nature. Over the last twenty years globalization and the loss of traditional practices and indigenous languages has widened the gap with nature. Not only are humans loosing touch with the natural world we are also loosing touch with food production, both nature and food production go hand in hand.

Fuck camping. Hiking is cool, as are most things outdoors. People just need to get off their lazy asses.

Yeah, I'd say humans are losing touch with nature, less and less people I know go camping, take hikes, and more stay in their houses watching TV or playing video games. I'd recommend the book "Last child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder"

You can find more about the book and the author here.
http://richardlouv.com/