Technologically transformed experiences of nature: A challenge for environmental conservation?

Direct experiences of nature are increasingly being replaced by technologically-mediated ones, with unclear implications for people's attitudes toward nature and toward environmental conservation. In this essay, we argue that it is useful to think not simply about the extinction of nature-based experience, but about the specific ways in which experiences of nature are being transformed into different types of experience, in order to consider the possible effects. Two important characteristics of these transformed experiences are that they are standardized, and that they encompass less sensory richness; based on research on the positive effects of direct experience, these characteristics suggest a possible reduction in both human wellbeing and support for environmental conservation. Because the transformation of nature experience is unlikely to be reversed, we encourage formal and informal environmental education that mindfully teaches children how to think about the relationship between virtual and real environments, so that one does not completely supplant the other.