By KT
On a Thursday morning, I drove to Nottoway park. As I drove into the park, I saw a basketball court and a tennis court beside the lot. I got out of my car and went on a walk to explore the park more. It was a cold morning but I bundled up which led to a nice comfy feeling. I was tempted to use my phone as I walk because I’m so used to using my phone whenever I’m walking from a location, but I knew I couldn’t. I kept walking on the sidewalk and didn’t realize how big Nottoway park was, it had many different fields. People were walking their dogs, people jogging or walking, and some people playing sports. Whenever I passed by someone we would exchange a friendly hi or just smile, which was nice. After 20 minutes of exploring, I sat down on a bench with a soccer field and trees near me. It felt awkward for me to just sit there, I felt like I wasn’t being productive. Then a thought occurred to me. When I was young, I loved being outside, playing in the playground, riding a bicycle, walking to the ice cream shop. However, now it’s awkward for me. I decided to just enjoy the hour in nature by walking around some more. It was silent when there was no one around, it was nice. There was no engine sound, no music, just the sound of the wind at times. I walked the same path about 3 times and noticed how nice the park was. After the hour, I realized being in nature helped me relax as it eased my mind from stress.
On a Saturday night after work, I did my night routine and hopped into bed. For that one hour which led to two hours, I watched Youtube, Tik Tok, and just scrolled on social media. I just watched some mukbangs and vlogs on Youtube for 30 mins, then I watched Tik Tok for around 30 mins, then I went on social media such as Instagram and Facebook, then I kept going back and forth. I realized that I enjoyed using technology but I didn’t learn anything from the time I spent in a media consumption environment. I also remembered that I saw in a study that Tik Tok leads to the increase of short attention span, which I realized in myself after I can’t watch anything for too long or I end up skipping some parts.
From this experience, I learned that as I grew older I started enjoying the indoors more and the media consumption. I thought I felt like I knew more when I was watching the media, but in reality, I was just learning information that is not useful, just like McKibben said in his book. However, in the media consumption environment felt like it passed by so fast as opposed to an hour in a naturalistic environment for me. I also realized that I feel awkward in a naturalistic environment without using any technology as opposed to when I was younger and enjoyed the outdoors. The naturalistic environment is something that I haven’t experienced in a while, however, it did make me feel good to be in nature and to put my phone away. Overall, I enjoyed this experience and I hope that in the future I can balance my life with a media consumption environment with spending time in a naturalistic environment.