Analog Kids in a Digital Age

As smartphones and social media become ever more ubiquitous and embedded, the love of nature—what E.O. Wilson called biophilia—is morphing into videophilia, a love of electronic media.

"We've quickly gone from a place where the average child would choose active outside activities to one where kids choose sedentary activities involving computers and smartphones and video," says conservation ecologist Patricia Zaradic. She and Oliver Pergams co-authored two studies that found that per capita visits to national parks and forests and other indicators of nature recreation have declined in developed countries since the late 1980s, due in large part to the increase in the amount of time spent on electronic media.

The trends they've identified have alarmed conservationists, whose efforts to protect wilderness depend on the support of people who connected with nature during their formative years. A rising generation of adults with little experience with wild places and little understanding of their value may ultimately have a greater impact on biodiversity and ecosystem health than bulldozers, invasive species, or even greenhouse-gas emissions, some think.

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