It begins with biophilia

People seem to feel very drawn to nature. Even if we don’t get outdoors very often, there are times in our lives when the desire for contact with the natural world can become intense.  This love of nature is so deeply ingrained in us that we can barely express it in words. The biologist E.O. Wilson calls it biohilia. He believes that early humans survived by attuning themselves to their surroundings and ‘reading’ the behaviours of other creatures and landscapes around them.

As being online becomes an everyday thing, what we should be doing to make sure that our digital lives are integrated, healthy, and mindful? My book Nature & Wellbeing in the Digital Age addresses this question and offers 50 practical activities to help us feel better without logging off.

We are caught in a battle for our digital souls. We’re regularly told to close down the computer and take a walk outdoors. Or get back to nature at a digital detox camp. Or turn off our internet for the weekend and observe an electronic sabbath. Or leave our phones in a tech cache at a country park to enjoy nature in the (offline) raw. But is all this frantic self-denial really necessary?