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I AM not an appy person. Technology generally makes me glum. I was the last person I know to get a smartphone. I shop in real shops, and like to read on thinly sliced tree. I was on social media for all of six months before I found the angst, bile and FOMO outweighed the LOLZ.

Call me a stick-in-the-mud. In fact do, because instead of head stuck in screen, I would far rather be out getting my legs dirty somewhere glorious and green. And pardon me if you disagree, but I’m right and you’re wrong. We can leave the debate about whether screen time is of itself good, bad or indifferent for our psyches to another time. We do know that time spent outdoors in natural spaces is phenomenally beneficial, not just for our physical health, but for our mental well-being, too – and that , indoor, sedentary, tech-led lives are increasingly lacking it.

Tech itself seems to be trying to ride to the rescue. Countless smartphone apps now aim to increase our appreciation of the great outdoors, from route planners and fitness apps to plant identifiers and birdsong recorders, via any manner of mindfulness widgets.

To my mind, that’s like fighting fire with fire. But hey, we like evidence around here. So I fired up my phone, loaded it with apps and headed for the great green yonder to find out whether tech could increase my connection with nature – and through that, perhaps understand a little more about why it’s so darn good for us.

1 May 5.20am @51.270:0.532

A waning supermoon is visible as I peer through the curtains, woken by bright sunshine and an infernal racket of sparrows directly outside. I open a birdsong app and wave my phone bleary eyed out of the window in the direction of the commotion.

Yep, definitely sparrows. I remember it’s Saturday and go back to bed. Sleep is important for mental health, too.

“Outdoorsy technophobe – I can certainly relate to that,” says . An environmental psychologist at the University of Vienna in Austria, he seeks to tease out the connections between nature exposure and mental well-being in his research.

“The effects are relatively small compared to other things that are important for our mental health: our relationships, our employment status, yadda yadda yadda,” he says. “But there’s a consistent positive relationship that we know of through every conceivable type of research.” The benefits come in the form of , creativity and cognitive function, as well as reduced susceptibility to negative states of mind from anxiety to depression.

It is a feeling many of us have perhaps experienced, without quite knowing where it comes from. “I got into this area when I was 17,” says environmental psychologist at the University of Surrey, UK. “I found that the stress of being a teenager, all of that ‘who likes me, who doesn’t like me’ and whatnot – just being in the woods made all those problems seem really small.”

But if nature is free medicine, few of us are taking it as advised. Research by White and his colleagues of “nature time” per week provides an optimal mental boost. In England, per cent of people spend time outdoors away from their home more than once a week. For a quarter of children, it is less than once a month. By far the most often cited reason is lack of time.

1 May 6.45 am @51.267:0.516

Mist is rising from the river as I pedal along the bank in bright early sunshine, cold penetrating through my gloves. There’s an overwhelming feeling of peace. Seeking a more expansive view, I consult the map on my phone and turn left across the bridge and up a steep hill onto higher ground.

I was a bit disingenuous about my distaste for tech. Two years ago, a present bought “for a friend” just happened to land me with Great Britain’s entire Ordnance Survey maps on my phone, too. Then, as a way of staying connected during the long months of remote working, colleagues started a club on Strava, an app that allows you to track and share runs, walks and bike rides. That unleashed a beast I didn’t know lurked inside me. The ability to track, compare, share – and maybe compete – became an additional source of motivation to get out when the spirit was otherwise unwilling and I “lacked time”.

Getting people to do things they know are good for them is a huge issue generally in psychology, says Marselle. Nature also doesn’t generally come to you. “For nature and biodiversity to have an impact on your mental health, you need to have exposure to it,” she says. “These apps you’re using are a really interesting behavioural intervention.”

We get more out of nature when we seek it out. In April, White and his colleagues published a study of more than 16,000 people across 14 European countries plus California, Canada, Hong Kong and Queensland, Australia. It showed that recreational visits to nature are with good mental health than just living in rural areas or “blue” spaces around sea or inland water. In Natural England’s research, meanwhile, people report a mental boost with any trip to a local park or recreation ground, but to (presumably more distant) hills and mountains, blue spaces or even farmland.

“To me, it seems there is an intrinsic tension between nature connectedness and using tech”

Where I live in the south of England, such environments are rarely that far away, just a short hop on a bicycle, bus or train even for a non-driver like me. If you can overcome the lack of motivation, though, orientation can become the next stumbling block. Google or Apple maps don’t quite cut it when it comes to finding the often heavily disguised Great British Footpath.

A wealth of trail-finding apps have sprung up to fill the gap, allowing you to follow routes mapped out by others aided by GPS location on your phone. I’m sniffy. Getting lost is half the charm, after all.

7 May 7.50 am @51.211:-4.102

I’m lost. Against my better judgement, I’m using a trail app to guide me on a run along the north Devon coast that probably should have been against my better judgement, too. This is supposed to be a holiday.

This gorse thicket came as a surprise. According to my plant identification app, there have been various campions – sea, red and bladder – all the way up the hill. And goldfinches, says the birdsong app. I can’t help thinking that the multiple distractions is why my phone now seems to know where I am, but I don’t.

Using “technology” to guide visits to natural spaces is nothing new. “In the old days, of course, you’d use books, maps and the odd birdsong record,” says White. “In theory, apps are not so different” – more immediate and perhaps more accurate, he says.

It’s a polite way of calling me a digital snob, but I’m increasingly thinking a lack of immediacy might be half the point.

Equally, I have been assuming so far that being in nature equates to reaping its benefits. That’s a presumption a lot of early research was prone to, as well, says of Derby, UK. “It’s easy to do science by measuring visits and time,” he says, “but your relationship with nature matters more than time and visits.”

Studies on people in urban green spaces of varying biodiversity, for example, have shown that those who really take in the setting reported better well-being and a than those who were reading, talking or otherwise socialising. In 2019, Richardson and his colleagues prompted participants in Sheffield, UK – via a smartphone app, as it goes – they saw around them and their reactions to it in words and photographs. , including those with mental health difficulties, reported sustained benefits to their well-being even one month after the trial. “Noticing nature is the route to nature connectedness and mental health,” says Richardson.

Marselle describes it as “absorption”: , the greater the benefit you seem to get. One explanation is simply that humans are attuned to natural environments, as this is where we have spent most of our evolutionary history. “Our brains have less work to do to keep us safe,” she says. “Modern environments are stressful for us. They’re loud, they’re noisy, they’re fast-paced,” says White. “The philosophy is that nature brings us back down to a homeostatic state for which we’re most adapted.”

Attention restoration theory, meanwhile, focuses on the way modern urban life requires us to be constantly redirecting our attention, whether at the screen in front of us or on traffic, people and other obstacles on a busy street. By holding our attention with less effort – but still providing a breadth and depth of experience to engage our senses – calmer, greener spaces allow us to restore drained cognitive reserves.

Lots of apps aim to tap into these ideas, explicitly or otherwise. Richardson’s app, for example, has morphed into a Nature Notes function on the iPhone version of , a trail app. Many general mindfulness apps include soothing nature images and soundtracks, feeding off a finding that “indirect” experience of nature can still provide some mental-health benefits.

I did try. I loaded one mindfulness app onto my phone, but deleted it within 24 hours as its constant push notifications suggesting I check my stress levels were stressing me out. Just not my Thermos of tea, you might say.

12 May 7.33 am @51.295:0.586

I’m running on the hills near home when I see a sea of cowslips on an escarpment meadow. At least I think they are cowslips. Frustratingly, my plant app can’t be any more precise than Order: Ericales (“Heathers, Balsams, Primroses, And Allies”).

I’m not sure what a primrose ally is when it’s at home. I lean too far over to get a better angle with my phone’s camera, and my foot slips on the steeply banked grass, planting me firmly on my back several metres downhill. No harm done, and staring rather damply up at a bright blue sky from a downland meadow, my annoyance gives way to a smile. That’s nature connectedness for you.

To me, it seems there’s an intrinsic tension between nature connectedness and use of tech: if it’s all about mindfulness in the moment, fiddling about with your phone is the last thing you should be doing. “You can be in nature, but not necessarily connected, because essentially, you’re connected somewhere else,” says White.

Sadly, it seems little research has been done to confirm my prejudices. A that “problematic smartphone use”, amounting to a compulsive inclination to check your phone, was correlated with low nature connectedness. The same study found that such connectedness also decreases with time spent on your phone each day and the number of selfies a person takes per week.

Independent research from Natural England shows that a sense of nature connectedness is high among young children, its former levels until we are into our 30s. Other research is correlated with increased sedentary time during childhood.

None of this indicates any causation, however. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in Richardson’s 2018 study, nature connectedness was also positively correlated with the number of nature photos taken a week. “For some people, that’s going to be the way back to a closer relationship with nature,” he says.

Many apps specifically focus on observing and recording nature, whether birdsong, plants, bug life or fungi. I have found them quite compulsive. It may be that I have a high “need for cognition”, White speculates: knowing and being able to classify what I see is rewarding in itself, potentially increasing my nature connectedness. “If an app helps enrich your experience and connects you more by improving your understanding, that’s a good thing,” he says.

Perhaps, but don’t those moments of frustration when the tech doesn’t work take me out of the moment and destroy it? Marselle thinks not. Attention restoration theory suggests four conditions need to be present for us to find a natural environment restorative: it gives us a sense of being away from stressful everyday environments; it provides fascination; it is compatible with what we want to do, be that a run, a wander or a picnic in the park; and it is “coherent”, somehow making sense to us. “Irrespective of if you bring your app out on occasions, you’re still getting that experience,” she says.

I might have to think longer-term, too, says White. “One question is, OK, your initial experience may have been undermined, but are all your subsequent experiences enriched?” he says.

Richardson suggests the effect of such interactions may build up over time. As you find yourself capable of identifying more off your own bat, that increases a sense of wonder at the beauty and variety of nature. “Even though you’re delivering knowledge, you’re delivering it in a way that taps into emotions,” he says. “Emotions are what forms that close relationship with nature.”

1 June 6:36 am @51.256:0.567

Running on a path across a cornfield on one of my semi-regular early morning routes, I stop and walk. Last time I was here, I became aware of something I had never consciously noticed before – a complex, endlessly varied river of music bubbling up from the corn itself. It’s here again now. I wait a while, and my patience is rewarded. A skylark ascends. Something within me does, too.

“Transcendence” is a word that is often bandied around in discussions of nature’s effects. We know that even such as humility, awe and self-reflection. We know that such transcendent experiences are associated with more positive moods and emotions. What we don’t know, because nobody’s studied it directly yet, is whether that is the pathway by which nature weaves its mental magic. “Biodiversity and health is a new emerging research area,” says Marselle. “We’re just at that first baseline of ‘x correlates with y’.”

“Identity” is another important word. We form emotional attachments with biodiverse environments we are familiar with, which in turn strengthens a psychological anchor of feeling we belong somewhere. One recurring theme is that , abundance of birds, butterflies and plants and a mosaic of habitats is as important as in making us feel good. That’s perhaps especially important in somewhere like the UK, where the “natural” landscape is largely a cultural one, shaped by human hand and husbandry over millennia. “We humans generally dislike uncertainty,” says White. “Uncertainty really raises dissonance.” Familiarity, in other words, breeds content.

After a month or so using nature identification apps, this is something I am beginning to understand. There’s a charm to those first moments of recognition: seeing a skylark; the reminder that that flower is called the yellow archangel, and realising why; the great warbling from a bed of reeds in Essex that the app told me was coming from a great reed warbler. But those interactions also build up over time into a soul-warming sense of familiarity: recognising the complex call of the wren, so surprisingly loud for such a tiny bird; knowing the scent of wild garlic on the air and following it to its source.

It is changing something about how I interact with nature. My jaunts into the green, which previously I thought of mainly in terms of wholesome concepts like fresh air and physical exercise, have become about much more. I stop far more, and bathe all my senses in the beauty, and awe, in the unnoticed and mundane.

8 July 7.04 am @51.258:0.560

Another month has passed. I’m on the footpath skirting the cornfield before the one where I first noticed the skylark, when I stop again. I’m arrested this time not by the acoustic backdrop, but by a new addition to the landscape: a row of flags with the insignia of a housing developer. The skylark field will presumably be next to go.

Healthy, biodiverse ecosystems are important for far more than our mental health. They provide us with food, regulate weather and climate, nourish soils and purify water and air – benefits worth trillions each year, provided by nature for free.

A greater sense of connection to ecosystems is demonstrably good for us. Another hope is that it might be good for nature, too, boosting our motivation to preserve what we have and to strike a better balance between our immediate material needs and the kind of world that can sustain them.

We are still far from understanding what that means. My homeland might regard itself as a nature-loving nation, but White’s 18-country study shows it ranks towards the bottom of the league on green-space visits. Meanwhile, Natural England’s research reveals that, despite widespread concern about biodiversity loss and environmental degradation, the proportion of people willing to accept changes to their lifestyle to protect the environment is low – just 1 in 6 – and has hardly budged in the decade the agency has been asking the question.

When I get home, I do something that fewer than 1 in 20 of my fellow citizens do, according to that same research, and contact a local conservation group. It isn’t necessarily where I expected this project to lead me, but it is a kind of answer all the same. I admit it’s a surprise that tech helped me to slow down and deepen my appreciation of the natural world. And whether I will continue to be an appier person, I don’t know – but happier? I think so, yes.