| Description |
Today, the majority of people in the United States reside in dynamic urban environments and navigate multiple, complex situations in their daily routines. These factors of modern life often require prolonged appropriation of cognitive energy to both external stimuli and a continuous series of tasks, resulting in directed attention fatigue. Directed attention fatigue is marked by a diminishment in an individual’s physiological state (alterations in neural activity), cognitive state (a decrease in motivation, reduction in the capacity to focus attention, and difficulties ignoring irrelevant information), and affective state (changes in emotional responses). The depletion of this resource results in, among other things, reduced task performance, which carries a potential for drastic, negative consequences. Increasingly, mobile phones are having a significant impact on these states. As of 2013, an estimated 91% of adults owned a mobile phone and most frequently use it for texting. Emerging trends involve the changing relationship between user and device, as a growing number of smartphone owners exhibit behaviors of over-use, dependency, and even addiction. Given the near constant presence of mobile phones and their increasing use for personal and professional purposes, their ability to constantly place demands on directed attention is cause for concern. Exposure to nature-rich surroundings, however, has been shown to activate alternate attentional networks, forcing the deactivation and restoration of the directed attention network. It was the purpose of this pilot study to determine to what extent directed attention is activated or deactivated in a nature-based environment when an individual is aware of the potentially distracting presence of their mobile phone. To this end, electroencephalograph recordings, a Recognition Memory Task, and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule were utilized, with and compared across two participant groups â€" those completing a nature walk without a phone and those completing it while receiving text messages on their phones (though instructed not to interact with the device). Upon processing the data, no significant differences were found to exist between groups. The pilot design of this study, however, has offered insight on previously unaccounted for variables, and has the potential to inform the development of future studies. |
