Exposure to nature is healing and soothing. People recovering in hospitals spend a lot of time waiting. I think it would be great if live nature cam feeds were made available in hospitals and patients could text to a number when species appear or events happen.
A portion of the screen would display the picture and name of the species to look out for and the code you need to text to the number.
Why limit it to hospitals? There’s a lot of bored people out there who would do this, just set it up on a live-streaming site and people can comment when they see something interesting.
I wouldn’t limit it to hospitals, however, I think it would be a good joint project for hospitals and scientists. It sure would be better than a loud TV in every hospital room and give people an easy and fun task.
Swedish Television (SVT) broadcasts live streams during the time of the yearly moose migration: Den stora älgvandringen. Sort of Moose Trail Cam. They put up cameras along common moose trails and river crossing points. The stream cast alternates between those points, and 99% of the time it’s mainly birdsong, the sound of rushing water and rustling of tree leaves, occasional spotting of other wildlife like fox, pheasant or badgers.
They started it ten years ago, and it proved to be so popular, that they’ve kept it up ever since. Some people follow along and post to Facebook when they see cute creatures or dramatic scenes like “Ooh! A fox just fought with a hare!”.
Other people, like me, have it on (with the sound in noise canceling headphones) just to have some zen like peace while doing boring administrative work at the busy office.
