Not that it is surprising, as people allow themselves to be robbed of experiences that reflect “real” reality, reports show that people are losing interest in being outdoors! Earthlink has a little news tidbit, Nature Giving Way to Virtual Reality from an AP release about some Nature Conservancy research that shows that outdoor recreation has been declining over the last quarter century. Now while this, of course, sounds like a good thing, as the outdoor recreation of humanity isn’t exactly good for the outdoors… I think we know that as people have less interest in going “out there” they will also have less interest in paying for “out there” to still be there.

“As people spend more time communing with their televisions and computers, the impact is not just on their health, researchers say.”

“The replacement of vigorous outdoor activities by sedentary, indoor videophilia has far-reaching consequences for physical and mental health, especially in children,” Pergams said in a statement. “Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance.”

“By studying visits to national and state park and the issuance of hunting and fishing licenses the researchers documented declines of between 18 percent and 25 percent in various types of outdoor recreation.”

As always seems to happen, the one positive aspect that I imagine would be found in these news stories, never actually seems to be the case… Due to the fact that no TV show or video game can really match the visceral thrill of killing something and holding its bloody and limp corpse in your hand, the study also found that “While fishing declined, hunting held onto most of its market.”