Re: People prefer videogames to the outdoors

I also heartily endorse "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" by Richard Louv.

An updated edition is scheduled to come out in late April. So if you haven't read it yet (or want to reread it), you might want to wait and see all the new info in this version.

Even though I was already on board for Louv's message, I learned a lot from reading the first edition. I constantly recommend it to others, especially parents. Since the book came out a few years ago there have been more efforts to get kids outside, but ultimately parents and other adults have to take it upon themselves to give kids those opportunities regularly.

I haven't actually read "The Dangerous Book for Boys," but I agree with Bill that the same attention should be given to getting girls outdoors. Maybe they could call it "The Dangerous Book for Kids." It sounds like an interesting book though, and I've been meaning to check it out.

This subject is one of my personal issues. Kids miss out on a lot of physical and personal benefits when they don't get a chance for unstructured outdoor play.

And unfortunately, if kids (and subsequently adults) have no personal experience with the outdoors they'll have no connection to it and they're not going to have a personal investment in protecting and valuing it. And ultimately that affects all of us.

Thanks also to f_klock for sharing his essay on the subject.