ISOLATION CREEP

It’s no shock to learn our rapidly increasing online lives are disconnecting us from nature, but a study suggests it’s taking a big toll on the mental health of Gen Z

- Helen Coffey

"Touch grass." It's an expression that, somewhat ironically, was birthed by internet culture and spread via forums like Reddit and Twitter. Issued to people when they seemed to get too vigorously het up about online issues and debates, it's an arch invitation to disconnect - get off the apps, go outside, commune with nature and remember what's really important. Not some stupid, hateful argument with a stranger in Arkansas, but the real world.

Though often fired off with a bit of eye-roll snark - the modern memeified equivalent of Michael Winner's condescending "calm down, dear" in those irritating Noughties insurance ads - the advice behind this put-down turns out to be searingly relevant for today's young people. Because Gen Z, according to new research, aren't going outside.

A recent study of 2,000 British adults by Super, Natural British Columbia, the official tourism body of the Canadian province, found that two-thirds of Gen Z (67 per cent) said they don't go outside for days at a time. More than half (57 per cent) of millennials said the same. In fact, only a quarter of those surveyed across all ages said they made a conscious effort to leave the cossetted safety of indoors at least once a day.

Gen Alpha currently seem to be on the same insular trajectory: some 43 per cent of parents say their children spend less time outside than they did at their age. A separate survey conducted by Outdoor Toys discovered that a third of UK children don't play outside daily, while a 2024 report from the Raising the Nation Play Commission detailed how the amount of time British children spend outside has decreased by roughly 50 per cent in a generation.