Martina explores the increasing disconnect from nature among the youth, particularly focusing around the effects of technology, and mental health The video draws on shared experiences of young people to create a fictional story on disconnection from nature in an age of social media and screens.

This is an existing and expanding issue in the society I am growing up in, and it is concerning mainly in two ways; 

-it might mean that nature will not get the attention and help that it needs because the people of my generation will not care about it or see it as a priority because they have lacked connection to it all their lives. 

-it has a detrimental effect on people and mental health, and if it is mainly effecting a certain group; young people, what does this mean for us as a future? What kind of society might we be living in? 

On a daily, very regular basis. As a young person I have experienced firsthand some of the ways that technology can be harmful to mental health and seen also on the other hand how more time spent with nature can do the opposite. 

It affects other young people as this is becoming the normal lifestyle; to live life by technology. It is in many ways becoming more and more of an addiction and I personally think that it can be quite restricting. Social media for example can be extremely harmful to someone’s self-esteem growing up and can essentially feed delusional ideals that do not exist into young minds, one example being body image. Within this digital age, rates of mental illness like depression and anxiety have become more common among young people which is saddening because ideally the young years of somebody’s life should be happy and exciting, not shrouded by difficulty and oppressed by mental health issues that are created through an unhealthy lifestyle that lacks time spent with nature.

This piece was created by Martina Horner on the Keeping It Wild Traineeship with London Wildlife Trust. The traineeship is one strand of the Keeping It Wild Project. This project is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and this particular activity strand was supported by Tallow Chandlers.

Banner image taken by Angelina during the Wild Action Programme, part of the Keeping It Wild project.