The virtual world’s approximation of the real world is getting more precise every day. Virtual pets have gone from the crude Tamigochi to the strangely lifeless Aibo and it’s possible to take an online video tour of nearly anywhere on earth, but we have a long way to go before we reach the level of Star Trek’s holodeck, and can actually be immersed in a virtual world.

As I compose this post, I am listening to Birdsong Radio on iTunes, and were I to close my eyes, I might believe I was in a distant, verdant grove, winged creatures darting through green clerestories above me.

But soothing as the chirping, tweeting (Damn you, Twitter, for corrupting that word.) and trilling may be, it leaves out the rest of the senses. I can even set my screensaver to “Tropical Forest” but since I’ve had deep drinks from nature’s wellspring, I’m not fooled. The soft loam beneath my boots, the warm embrace of tropical air, the scent of, well… life, are all missing.

What, you may ask, does this post even tangentially have to do with content?

The following headline came through my news feed yesterday: “Humans may be losers if technological nature replaces the real thing, psychologists warn.” The story, from the online magazine Science Daily, summarized a study from Current Directions in Psychological Science which indicated that not only will humans suffer on many levels from failing to get enough exposure to real nature, but that the natural world, reduced to sound bites and panoramas on computer screens will suffer as humans become more and more detached from the real-life issues that threaten wild spaces.

The rest of this blog post contains a set of instructions that will take you away from this screen, so jot them down on some scrap paper, or better yet, simply commit them to memory.

1.    Stop.

2.    Take your hand off the mouse and slowly back away from the computer.

3.    Go outside.

4.    Start walking away from the noise.

5.    Don’t stop until you reach something that passes for a natural landscape, be it a city park, a beach or the Grand Canyon.

6.    Find a quiet spot.

7.    Sit down.

8.    Be still.

9.    Feed your soul.

10.    Repeat daily.

— Jonathan

Photo by Clearly Ambiguous

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 at 11:42 am and is filed under Content, Editorial, News, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.