Technological Nature ─ Adaptation and the Future of Human Life

Our forebears may have had a close connection with the natural world, butincreasingly we experience technological nature. Children come of age watching digital natureprograms on television. They inhabit virtual lands in digital games. And they play with roboticanimals, purchased at big box stores. Until a few years ago, hunters could"telehunt"--shoot and kill animals in Texas from a computer anywhere in the world via aWeb interface. Does it matter that much of our experience with nature is mediated and augmented bytechnology? In Technological Nature, Peter Kahn argues that it does, and shows how it affects ourwell-being.Kahn describes his investigations of children's and adults' experiences of cutting-edgetechnological nature. He and his team installed "technological nature windows" (50-inchplasma screens showing high-definition broadcasts of real-time local nature views) in inside officeson his university campus and assessed the physiological and psychological effects on viewers. Hestudied children's and adults' relationships with the robotic dog AIBO (including possible benefitsfor children with autism). And he studied online "telegardening" (a pastoral alternativeto "telehunting"). Kahn's studies show that in terms of human well-being technologicalnature is better than no nature, but not as good as actual nature. We should develop and usetechnological nature as a bonus on life, not as its substitute, and re-envision what is beautifuland fulfilling and often wild in essence in our relationship with the natural world.

Peter H. Kahn, Jr. is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and Director of the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems Laboratory at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Human Relationship with Nature: Development and Culture (1999, 2001) and the coeditor of Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigations (2002), both published by the MIT Press.