Watching TV is good for nature

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If you've been looking for another reason to justify hanging out on Netflix, then this might be it – watching nature documentaries. This way of spending time helps raise awareness of plants, which can lead to the development of conservation strategies urgently needed to protect our planet. This is evidenced by the results of a new study published Thursday in the Annals of Botany.

Scientists were looking into whether the popular BBC documentary 'Green Planet' stimulates the audience's interest in plant life after viewing. After all, according to statistics, about 40% of plant species are endangered. While people are generally concerned about endangered animals, threats to plants are harder to recognize and address.

“In this study, we show that nature documentaries can increase viewers' awareness of plants, &mdash ; notes the author of the article about the study, Joanna Katsprzyk. — Our results also indicate that viewers found certain plant species particularly interesting. This can be used to promote plant conservation efforts and counter the loss of plant biodiversity.

The researchers found out whether Green Planet generates interest in plants by examining people's online behavior during the broadcast. First, they noted the species that appeared in the series and how long each of them was on the screen. Then they checked the number of visits to Google pages Trends and Wikipedia for the same species before and after the documentary episodes were shown.

The team found that people were more likely to perform online searches for plants that had more screen time on the Green Planet. In addition, around 28.1% of searches for plants featured in a BBC documentary peaked in the UK, as measured by Google Trends, a week after the relevant episode aired.

Wikipedia data showed a similar trend Nearly a third (31.3%) of Wikipedia's plant-related pages saw an increase in hits a week after broadcast.

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