The Great Indoors

[Epictetus]

In reference to the thread: Predicting the future of technology, especially Fraggle Rocker's comment:

The ways in which you play--Angry Birds uses a lot less energy than the maintenance of a golf course.

I was inspired to begin this thread in which I want to discuss the shift from outdoors to indoors.

Never mind how old I am (not very, but I thought 'Angry Birds' must be a grunge band) in my day even skinny little wimps like myself were out every day playing softball in the park, or hockey in the street, weeding gardens, washing cars and shoveling snow. I was vaguely aware that youngsters don't do these things anymore, but it wasn't until a Turk I know, who is in his mid-thirties, told me that even in his country kids don't play outside anymore. He remembers himself a time in the mid-1990s (in Turkey, again) when virtually overnight the parks and fields were abandoned. The Super Mario Brothers had raised their ugly mustachioed heads, and boys playing soccer became a thing of the past.

I live outside the U.S. for donkey's years, as the Brits say, although it is my native land. I had heard that 'soccer' (football) had impossibly become popular and that there were even such creatures as 'soccer moms'. IS this also gone?

So my discussion question is: Is it really so that young people don't do much outdoor activity anymore, and what, if anything, can be done about it? I am assuming it is a bad thing...

[zargod]

Ideas:

1-Need a license to use a smartphone, like a drivers license. No CELL till your (?age) but a basic contact phone that has contacts that the parents have to program in so they can only call and connect with their parental contacts.........? Might work but never happen.

2- Hey PARENTS!!!!! Take em camping, hiking, to the beach, up a mountain, fishing, snorkeling(spl?), scuba diving, aquariums, museums, SCHOOL etc.; from an early age till growing into adults......?

3- LIMITED BIG TIME MOM AND DAD INTERNET security restrictions, like the limited contact phone. NEED APPROVAL from PARENTS.

4- Mandatory Nature Awareness classes taught with ecological damages in the NEW SCHOOL which needs to be created for our youth.

5- Basic natural disaster training (Take your pick for your area)

Ok thats my brainstorming for this thread.

And I will end this with I am glad I am not a youth anymore. I hope the generations to come can pull out in time.

3-

[leopold]

I am assuming it is a bad thing...

no need to assume.
there is a reason why grade schools have recess and there is a reason it's outside.

[Buddha12]

Is it really so that young people don't do much outdoor activity anymore, and what, if anything, can be done about it?

As was already stated it is really up to their parents to take them anywhere away from their neighborhoods and keep them away from their computers for a period of time.

Many places do not have any youth activities after school so I'd think that starting a program that young adults could attend after they get out of school that is a program that has adults supervising it would be a very good thing.

Many places don't have anywhere that young adults can play at so more public parks would be a very good idea not only for the young but adults too.