As nature connection researchers, we’re aware of the innumerable benefits of spending time outside in nature. We’re also aware that, like so many other interactions, immersing oneself in nature is an experience that is now available virtually. In fact, virtual reality (VR) companies now promote VR nature as tools for corporate wellness.
Some universities have also added VR to staff or student services. When we learned that our staff association at University of Waterloo was offering a new wellness initiative linked to nature, our excitement faded upon realizing the initiative wasn’t about real nature — such as encouraging staff members to take regular breaks to sit by the stream on campus, or to walk around nearby Columbia Lake — but VR nature.
Headsets would be available for use in libraries pre-loaded with the Nature Treks VR app, which lets users explore natural settings like beaches, greenery and oceans, choosing the time of day and the weather.
Waterloo is not the first institution to turn to such tools to support well-being. The McGill Student Wellness Hub similarly offers VR sessions with “Mindful Escapes,” an app in which users can “embark on virtual journeys to serene landscapes, calming forests, ocean depths or mountain adventures.”
VR nature appears to be a wellness trend.
Technological nature
We’re skeptical that VR nature will enable the diverse benefits that real nature offers. What might be the consequences of such “technological nature” — nature mediated and augmented by a technological interface?
Turning to technology such as VR headsets for nature immersion contributes to what one expert in environmental psychology, Susan Clayton, calls a transformation of experience. First, VR allows the user to control and therefore optimize and homogenize their nature experience, perhaps selecting only glorious weather and the most sensational or pristine wilderness. Technologically optimized depictions of nature “may lead people to be less interested in, or satisfied by, messy, unexciting, local ecosystems.”
Might VR headsets diminish users’ appreciation of immersive and restorative nature experiences that can be found in their local greenspace?
