Nature Deficit Disorder (NDD) in children
has been graphically described by Richard Louv in his Last Child in the Woods.
I contend that NDD is in part caused by AAOD. With our attention directed by
the digital we miss the many opportunities for stimulus from the world that
surrounds us and that we are a part of. We fail to live in the symbionment when wired
and wireless for stimulus. Our children then have no idea what utility and
beauty there is in our relationships to the living world, both human and
non-human. They have a form of sensory deprivation that causes them to live in
a world that could be called Myopia. It is no wonder the generations of
children being raised by adults with AAOD have no idea about the importance of
ecosystem services, ecosystem health, nature’s cycles, nature’s beauty and a
stable climate that supports all life. When the machine stops (E.M. Forster),
we will all be made acutely aware of the importance of the symbiocene and the obscenity
of the anthropocene and its AAOD in adults and NDD in our children.
