One of the sturdiest trends that swept tik tok during the early days of the pandemic and continues to gain a following today is the Hot Girl Walk. Defined by Healthline as an hour-long walk where you listen to uplifting music or a podcast, this activity has captured the attention of 451 million tik tokers (and counting). But why now, has a basic form of transportation become a fad? Influencers claim they are ‘making walking cool again’ in order to promote self care and land themselves on a side of tik tok titled ‘clean girl.’ The idea is that in a world so encapsulated in our screens, we have to start taking time to just be with ourselves and our thoughts (and then post about it on social media for others to see ..?) The term has struck major cities including New York, Washington DC, Boston, and even the initiation of “Girls Who Walk Chicago”, a platform with over 12k followers that meets weekly for an urban stroll.
Like any fad, ideas come and go, along with how reputable they are. But environmental neuroscientists like Marc Berman from the University of Chicago make it seem like these Hot Girl Walks might be onto something. Berman studies the intersection of greenspace and neurocognition through the concepts of directed and indirected attention. Nature is known to be a soft, not all-consuming stimulus and therefore not a lot of directed attention is required. Instead, the environment is capturing our indirect attention and therefore working to restore attention. This is the mechanism by which Berman believes his studies have found success through. To test this Attention Restoration Theory, two groups were assigned a respective walking route: one city with busy roads, and one in nature. Upon returning, subjects were assessed with a backwards digit span text. The following week the participants returned to the lab, were instructed to walk the opposing route they walked previously, and were re-given the BDS test. Independent of the order participants walked each route, there was a 20% average increase in test scores when participants were given the test after returning from a nature walk, versus the city walk. This theory proved true in a duplicate study of participants with clinical depression. The same procedure steps were taken, yielding results that the participants had 5x the positive effects on memory recall versus the non-clinically depressed group.
With this intersection of neuroscience and social media trends, I have a challenge for you: go out for a walk in nature. Wear your most relaxed clothes and bring whatever makes you feel comfortable, but leave the social media at home. Your eyes can be the camera lens and your feet will count the steps. Take in the world around you, without having to remember to look up. Buzzfeed has claimed that a true Hot Girl Walk includes cute accessories and a matching workout set, but leave these out and environmental neuroscientists are just as content.
Works Cited
Berman, M. G., Stier, A. J., & Akcelik, G. N. (2019). Environmental neuroscience. American Psychologist, 74(9), 1039–1052. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000583.
Cao, Steffi. “Hot Girl Walks Are the Fancy Version of a Silly Little Walk.” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 5 Sept. 2022, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stefficao/tiktok-hot-girl-walk.
Schimelpfening, Nancy. “Hot Girl Walk: Can the TikTok Trend Really Boost Your Mood and Fitness.” Healthline, Healthline Media, 24 June 2022, https://www.healthline.com/health-news/hot-girl-walk- can-this-tiktok-trend-really-boost-your-mood-and-fitness.
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