"I'm here to see nature, not spend more time on my phone!": A Study of Technological Obtrusiveness and How it is Managed in an Urban Nature Setting

Although people often visit places of nature to disconnect from technology, increasingly digital tools are shaping these experiences. To better understand how technologies might become obtrusive in nature settings, and how people manage such obtrusiveness, we conducted a field study of 30 adults visiting an urban nature park and using digital tools that ranged in interactive intensity from simple photography, through photo sharing and plant identification, to a more immersive site-specific augmented reality app. Distinctive facets of the way they experienced technology as obtrusive were observed: deprivation, prescriptiveness, engrossment, diminishment, neediness, unreliability, and awkwardness. We identify six tactics used to manage these experiences: abstaining, limiting, minimising, deferring, delegating, and conforming. Our findings indicate that technological obtrusiveness is a complex experience affected not only by the intensity of interactive demands, but also incongruities between the way people desire to experience nature and technology-prescribed activities, and people’s agency to deploy mitigating tactics.