At an ethnic village attraction, a city girl covered her face and repeatedly screamed, "A dragonfly！A dragonfly!" Wang Yu heard the shrieks from 20 meters away. She approached the girl and said, "Don't be afraid, it won’t bite you."
Yesterday at the “Saving ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ Seminar” held at Shanghai Zoo, Wang Yu, director of the Yunnan Local Natural Education Center, shared this personal experience: “Today’s children may know more about nature, but they interact with it less and less.” Survey results presented at the seminar from the “Research on Children’s Intimacy with Nature in Urban Areas” showed that as many as 51.42% of children never or rarely visit parks or engage in other outdoor activities during holidays. Experts called on society not to let today’s “homebodies” become tomorrow’s “couch potatoes.”
The older the child, the more “indoorsy” they become
Yan Baohua, project coordinator for the Global Greengrants Fund, said it is undeniable that today’s children have significantly less exposure to “nature” compared to their parents and grandparents. This is not only due to urbanization, but also factors such as air and water pollution, busy parents, heavy academic loads, reliance on electronic devices, and safety concerns, all of which act as barriers between children and nature. Wang Yu believes that what cities lack is not entirely nature, but rather the process through which children, adolescents, and adults interact with it.
Li Bing, director of the Shanghai Oasis Ecological Conservation Exchange Center, explained that among the 1,307 valid questionnaires collected from 20 provinces and cities across the country, only 14.08% of children spend more than 7 hours per week on outdoor activities — equivalent to at least one hour per day. At the same time, 40.78% of children spend over 6 hours per week watching TV, using the internet, or playing various electronic games. The research found that children’s outdoor activity time decreases with age. The proportion of children spending more than 7 hours outdoors per week drops from 50% among those aged 0–4 to just 13.05% among those aged 13–18.
The farther from nature, the closer to illness
Although “Nature Deficit Disorder” is not yet a medical term, it does come with some “symptoms.” Yan Baohua stated that nature deficit disorder may lead to childhood obesity, diabetes, attention disorders, depression, vision deterioration, communication difficulties, and declining reading ability.
However, experts believe the more frightening aspect is the “complications” of nature deficit disorder. As time spent on outdoor activities close to nature decreases, children do not become more eager to step outside, but gradually lose interest in outdoor activities. This “Nature Intimacy” survey also showed that the group of children who spend less than 3 hours per week on outdoor activities had the lowest level of interest in such activities among all groups. Among them, 7.57% were “not interested in outdoor activities, very reluctant to participate, and unable to concentrate,” while an equal percentage of children “wanted outdoor activities to end quickly so they could go home and play on the computer.” Wang Yu said the extreme form of nature deficit disorder could be “nature phobia.” Such children are unwilling and unable to play in nature, show no interest in natural phenomena, have dulled natural senses, and reduced adaptability to natural environments. “They are no longer happy in nature but scared.”
Helping children “return to nature”
Li Bing revealed that in the survey, when it comes to choosing travel destinations, 55.85% of children prefer theme parks, amusement parks, and exhibition halls, while only 24.41% are willing to go to the countryside, woodlands, wetlands, or forests. Nearly one in ten children would opt to stay in safe and comfortable star-rated hotels or resorts.
Experts say that rebuilding the relationship between children and nature ultimately depends on adults. In fact, after varying degrees of “denaturalization” in big cities, nature deficit disorder also affects parents and teachers to some extent. For parents, they can start with diet — taking their children to markets instead of supermarkets to buy groceries, or even picking produce directly. They can also try balcony gardening, observing and recording plant growth with their children. Of course, the best option is weekend outings, camping, or traveling to wilder environments. For schools, in addition to bringing children outdoors, they can also bring nature into the classroom.
A book, Last Child in the Woods, resonated strongly among the seminar participants. Written by American journalist and children’s rights advocate Richard Louv, it was hailed by local media as “comparable to Silent Spring.” The book states: “In our family life and schools, in all the environments where we live, we can immediately encourage the reconnection of children with nature. But in the long run, unless we change cultural patterns and rebuild the environment, the gap between us and nature will only grow wider.”