Nature-Deficit-Disorder

I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are. - - A fourth grader in San Diego.

"Nobody wants to be it: the last child in the woods. A new book by the same name explores the notion that today's children, text-messaging in their air-conditioned houses in asphalt subdivisions, share a common problem: "Nature-Deficit-Disorder."

Richard Louv, the author of "Last Child in the Woods" and columnist for the San Diego Union-Tribune, links the lack of contact with the natural world to childhood obesity, depression and attention disorders.

He writes that television "steals time," but nature "amplifies it." It's hard to argue with that. So why don't children get out in nature more?

[via The Hunstville Times]

emily | 2:11 PM | News, Buzz |
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