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Exploring the pine savannahs at The Nature Conservancy's Piney Grove Preserve in southeastern VA

Exploring the pine savannahs at The Nature Conservancy's Piney Grove Preserve in southeastern Virginia
© Mark Godfrey

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Nature Conservancy Study Finds Today’s Kids Are Choosing TV Over Trees

Electronic Entertainment Leaves Less Time for the Outdoors

by Michael McCauley

A recent study in the Journal of Environmental Management finds the growing use of electronic entertainment has put a squeeze on the amount of time Americans spend outdoors.

The report compares data on national park attendance with a number of variables, including federal spending on parks, an aging population and park capacity. But the study finds the most significant correlation between declining per-capita national park attendance and increases in time spent watching movies, surfing the Internet and playing video games, as well as increased fuel costs. The average American spent more than 174 hours on the Internet and 90 hours playing video games in 2003, up from virtually zero in 1987, when per-capita national park attendance hit its peak.