Green spaces are great, if you can put down your digital devices
Overuse of portable digital devices depletes attention capacity, a critical cognitive resource. Attention matters for everything we want to accomplish, whether it is learning or occupational tasks, problem-solving, self-monitoring or effective social functioning.
This inattentiveness and resultant irritability can have impacts ranging from vehicular or occupational accidents and low learning performance, to depression, poor social relationships, aggression or violence. Attention deficits can also trigger impulsiveness, leading to impacts like drug addiction, unhealthy sexual behaviour and low self-discipline.
In view of the importance of attention enhancement, two colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Rose Schmillen and William C. Sullivan, and I conducted a study on whether green spaces enhance attention in spite of electronic screen engagement. Attention restoration theory says contact with nature promotes attentional functioning, but how does that interact with the use of electronic devices?
Many young Hongkongers unable to control smartphone addiction
We studied 81 participants in a campus town in Illinois as they performed cognitive tasks and were then randomly assigned to one of four rest treatments: green settings with or without a laptop computer, and barren settings with or without a laptop computer.