Another interesting side effect of the outdoors that I've noticed is the impact on human social interaction. I ride the train into SF every day and throughout the week I sit next to countless other people without speaking to a single one of them. I went backpacking through the Lost Cost Trail last weekend and had a conversation with literally every human being that I passed. Not just a "hi, how you doing?" but a genuine conversation about where they were from, what part of the trail they started on, where they were going, what they had seen. In fact, I would get people waving and saying hi from 100 yards away across a stream. It felt genuine and easy and I'm pretty sure they all felt the same.
That's not nature, that's how people behave in a leisure enviroment, and in other locations where they feel some commonality with the people around them.
For what it's worth, I've noticed that for me too but have considered it a ruleset issue: we all desire to connect with other human beings, but because there are too many people everywhere and of low connection relevancy, the default we take is to not interact with anyone, else we'd never get around to doing anything.
In nature the people are scarce and also all share an appreciation for nature, so it's natural for us to want to connect.
