Yes, Tech Can Be Toxic. A Whale Showed Me It Can Bring Us Closer to Nature, Too.

Locked down in London at the height of the pandemic, bombarded with scary news, I'd felt my connection with nature starting to fray. The daily hour we were allowed to walk in the park for exercise became for me (and many others) a lifeline. And for these walks, I took my phone--not to chat, but to learn. Despite being a well-traveled wildlife filmmaker, I was shamefully clueless about the names and habits of many of the species native to my homeland. Soon a tree-identifying app introduced me to the flora I'd been strolling past.