How much of a toll does the daily, relentless information overload take on our brains?
Our routine life can leave our minds prone to mistakes, unable to focus and just plain fatigued, but University of Utah cognitive neuroscientist David Strayer has found a possible cure: Nature.
After returning from just three days in beautiful natural surroundings, he found that a group of 28 backpackers performed 50 percent better on creative problem-solving tasks. A massive improvement in a such a short amount on time. Strayer calls this “The Three-Day Effect.”
It wasn’t hard science, but recently a few members of the Huck team put the idea of a digital detox to the test in Canada’s Algonquin Park — an off-the-grid nature reserve half the size of Wales — while shooting with Fred Sirieix, an avowed social media addict, world traveller and also Maitre D’ on Channel Four’s First Dates. Fred shares his impressions after three days in the diary-style video above.
Check out more shorts from our Explore Canada series here. For more Huck films, you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Enjoyed this article? Like Huck on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
Latest on Huck
Exploring the impact of colonialism on Australia’s Indigenous communities
New exhibition, ‘Under a Southern Star: Identity and Environment in Australian Photography’ interrogates the use of photography as a tool of objectification and subjugation.
Written by: Miss Rosen
My sister disappeared when we were children. Years later, I retraced her footsteps
After a car crash that saw Magnum photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa hospitalised, his sister ran away from their home in South Africa. His new photobook, I Carry Her Photo With Me, documents his journey in search of her.
Written by: Lindokuhle Sobekwa
Inside New York City’s hedonistic 2000s skateboarding scene
New photobook, ‘Epicly Later’d’ is a lucid survey of the early naughties New York skate scene and its party culture.
Written by: Isaac Muk
Did we create a generation of prudes?
Has the crushing of ‘teen’ entertainment and our failure to represent the full breadth of adolescent experience produced generation Zzz? Emma Garland investigates.
Written by: Emma Garland
How to shoot the world’s most gruelling race
Photographer R. Perry Flowers documented the 2023 edition of the Winter Death Race and talked through the experience in Huck 81.
Written by: Josh Jones
An epic portrait of 20th Century America
‘Al Satterwhite: A Retrospective’ brings together scenes from this storied chapter of American life, when long form reportage was the hallmark of legacy media.
Written by: Miss Rosen