Time on the trail, smartphone use, and place attachment among Pacific Crest Trail thru-hikers

Abstract

Five hundred fourteen (514) surveys were conducted at three intercept points along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in California and Oregon to gather information about time on the trail, smartphone use, and their relationship to thru-hikers’ place attachment levels. Ninety-seven (97) percent of the thru-hikers surveyed carried smartphones and reported using them an average of 3 h and 23 min a day. Increased smartphone use was significantly associated with the number of days on the trail. Results indicated further that with increased time on the trail, the thru-hikers’ sense of place identity and social bonding increased, while their sense of place dependence decreased. Finally, no relationship was found between smartphone use and place attachment. We conclude by tying the study’s results to the extant literature on technology in wildland recreation, and further discuss management implications, limitations of our study, and recommendations for future research.

Keywords:

• Place attachment
• technology
• social environment
• outdoor recreation
• backpacker