Are we losing touch with nature?

Given any kid an option these days to visit an arcade or a regular park with the usual slides and swings, without a second thought they are swift to pick the former. Our urban dwellings, homes, workplaces, schools, and public recreation joints are closeted and air-conditioned. Unless you have a nature bug in you, you are not willing to spend a few hours outdoors.

To put it in other words, life outside our indoor habitats has become unbearable as we have lost the patience to sweat out a few drops in the bare natural environments. Ultra-sophisticated and caged we have become with little resilience and endurance left physically and mentally.

As per an article published in Oxford Academic, “Currently, over 50 per cent of the world's population is living in urban areas and has limited our opportunity to engage in nature.” A series of factors have tamed this growing behaviour; social media addiction, pandemic lifestyle with nearly everything catered and delivered at the doorstep, and the technological comfort and connection of indoor spaces with the addition of scorching weather have fueled this altered pattern.

The concept of in-home parties, home theatres, and the obsolete need to get out and get groceries or restaurant food deliveries have taken the urban populace by storm. The traffic, lacking interest in socialising and interacting with people, and digitalisation are cornering to self-created indoor bubbles.

Man-made luxury has overridden the happiness yielded from being amidst nature or outdoors. Little do we realise we have surrendered to the indoor lifestyle and let technology rule our minds. Robust indoor lighting has substituted the need for natural sunlight. We are no longer bothered whether ample sunlight is paving its way into our homes through doors and windows. We have found a solution to that too; the vitamin D supplements.

Indoor plants, air purifiers, humidifiers, and intricately designed living interiors, are a long way and have come to accept this simulated lifestyle that seems no more unrealistic. As this self-caged culture is hitting in the name of ease and pleasure, and we find kids and adults distracted alike, they are unlikely to participate in a real conversation.

Instead, they feel scarier while venturing outdoors or exposed to absurd situations, more immersed in gaming characters than playing outdoors with real friends or hone appropriate communication skills.

It also gets difficult to trace back the dots that finding solace in an indoor world as the culprit.

We are harbouring a generation that needs and breeds instant solutions, that lacks patience, and sustainability, that has become whimsical to play out of its own emotions and momentary dopamine rushes. The toddlers are swiping right, left, up, and down and we are celebrating this as a proud moment. The evils are spreading their roots and we wonder why these present-day kids are falling into depression, loneliness, body shaming, appearances, and getting offended by trivial stuff.

Sliding to the solutions, we all know that striking a balance between the indoor and outdoor world will rectify the crisis generated but the question is how willing we are to put in our efforts? How willing are we to spend a considerable chunk of a day and face the realities of the real world?

Are we ready for everyday sun basking or do we still prefer to pop vitamin D pills? We have created humans, our wellness needs are better-taken care of when outdoors, getting some fresh breeze and leisure time spent amongst humans. “Steer your way through technology and not vice versa” If implemented as a rule of thumb, further damage can be curbed.