HDTV That Brings Nature to Living Rooms
Brings National Park Visits Down, Says Biologist

Ahh, summer, the perfect time to get outdoors and enjoy the wonders of nature.

That is, unless you've already had your fill at home in your air-conditioned living room, where, thanks to high-definition technology, you can count the blades of grass while a black bear makes his way across Yosemite Park without having to worry about the corresponding pollen count.

And while conventional wisdom has always held that shows like "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" help children learn about and appreciate the natural world, Biology Instructor Patricia Zaradic is wondering if we haven't gone too far and started to favor "virtual" nature over the real thing.

"Kids are watching these programs with this sensational imagery and then they go out in their backyard or to a local park and it seems lackluster in comparison," says Zaradic, who along with Oliver Pergams of the University of Illinois at Chicago writes about the topic in an article for the just-released Summer 2007 issue of the Journal of Developmental Processes.

"Somehow we have to get children to realize that the animals in their backyard are really great too," says Zaradic. "Because it's from the real interactions – the buggy, hot, cold, muddy, dirt under your fingernails nature – that conservationists are born."

Last year, Zaradic and Pergams presented research showing a correlation between an increase in the use of electronic media such as video games, television and the Internet with a corresponding per-capita decline since 1987 in visits to national parks.

"It seems likely that people are visiting other natural areas less and that this decline is not unique to our national parks," Pergams says. "If further research finds similar longitudinal declines in other nature-related activities, we may be even more certain that people are really turning away from nature in general, rather than just national parks."

"In the short term, this might sound like a good thing for some of these areas since it means less of a strain on the parks," adds Zaradic. "But when you talk to people who are really concerned about conservation and the environment, you find time and again that their passion comes from being exposed to the outdoors and nature as a child.

"So in the short term nature might recover, but in the long term no one's going to care."

For more information about Zaradic's and Pergams' research, go to www.videophilia.org.

Back to Bryn Mawr Now 6/28/07

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