Over the past 19 years, the number of people visiting national parks has been steadily decreasing. The cause of this trend? Video games, television, and the Internet. That is the finding of a study funded by the Nature Conservancy.
The Nature Conservancy posted an article to discuss the study’s results, which it described as “evidence of a fundamental shift away from people’s appreciation of nature.” Ecologists Oliver Pergams and Patricia Zaradic, along with Peter Kareiva, found that “video games, home movie rentals, going out to movies, Internet use, and rising fuel prices explained almost 98 percent of the decline in people visiting national parks.”
“We’ve shown statistically that the rise in use of these various types of media, as well as oil prices, is so highly correlated with the decline in national park visits that there is likely to be some association,” said Pergams. The Nature Conservancy article says the researchers “ruled out variables such as family income, aging of the population, a recent rise in foreign travel or park capacity as major factors.”
Steve McCormick, the president and CEO of the group, expressed regret over the trend. “When children choose TVs over trees, they lose touch with the physical world outside and the fundamental connection of those places to our daily lives.”
So maybe it’s time to take a hike, go camping, or have a business lunch on top of Everest. Or not. You could even use this as an excuse to become more tech-centric-gotta fit in, right? At the very least, it’s good to be aware of how our lives are changing. Whether you take up hugging trees or not is entirely up to you.
Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web
Technorati:
Doug is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest eBusiness news.
