I listen to the Earthwatch Radio Podcast. It’s a nicely produced, short-format show originally meant for broadcast. A recent episode was called Screening Out Nature, and briefly covers the decline in visits to America’s national parks. One can conjecture about the many reasons for the decline, but according to the The Nature Conservancy, it directly correlates with a rise in the consumption of electronic media and a rise in oil prices. The episode gives more attention to the former and concludes that “parents need to get their kids away from the video games and computers and send them outside.” There is certainly a lot of alarmist ink spilt on the topic of “Nature Deficit Disorder.”
But I wonder why video games and the outdoors have to be mutually exclusive concepts. They aren’t oil and water. Maybe it is just the antiquarian nature of many environmentalists’ worldview? It should be possible to make the digital and the organic world live together in one experience. Geocaching comes to mind as one example. Anyone else have others?
Jason Robertshaw
And as an update, I now notice that the Nature Conservancy offers its own podcast. Which is kind of my point. If the problem is electronic media leading to disengagement from the natural world, then we need to reinterpret the message by using new media.
The problem isn’t electronic media; it’s sedentarianism. When sedentary, electronic media is the path of least resistance in terms of entertainment and recreation. The original popularity of podcasts proved that new media can be fasioned to fit into a non-sedentary lifestyle–mp3’s that would normally be listened to at the computer as “webcasts” were now going jogging!
Agreed! I personally listen to the LOST podcast during my commute as well as various others whenever I’m running or working out.
I work for TNC and upon the publication of our “TV vs. Trees” report, I plied the same question to the Gather.com community. You can see what they said about sedentary kids.
As for how to battle sedentary habits, it seems that a mix of parenting, education, community/school opportunities, and active lifestyles all could play strong roles. And I think that technology and broadcast media can definitely have positive aspects… think of how Steve Irwin got kids interested in wildlife and conservation when they watched his TV show or DVDs.
Actually, I wonder about something else… isn\’t the decline of people visiting natural parks actually a good way for the damage from humans to be lessened? The last time I visited a national park (Grand Canyon–1992) they were talking about the negative impact that the tourists had on the natural ecosystem, which at the time struck me as a bizarre set of conflicting missions–exposing the populace to the wonders of nature, while simultaneously wishing they wouldn\’t \”get so close.\”
Actually, the lack of interest in nature does remind me of a movie produced a number of years ago, where a space ship was created that would be our last vestige of nature. It was a collection of habitats maintained by just a few people, and mostly robots.
Wish I could remember the name of it…
Steve Brady…fixed your URL.
As for the decline being a good thing, I expect part of the concern can be summed up with this old quote:
Wish I could remember the attribution for that quote. Anyone know? But the idea being that if children are disengaged from nature, they won\’t value it later in life and won\’t vote or take measures to keep it wild and protected.
Interesting points all, and I agree wholeheartedly. I think if kids are brought up developing no interest in nature. Their society will develop to the detriment of society, ie lost habitats, etc in lieu of movie theaters, shopping malls, or whatever. When such kids grow up, no one will be passionate enough to take jobs or fight to save such wild places? Though interest in nature might be a double-edged knife, I think one edge will always remain sharper.
Ha! Finally found it: