‘Videophilia’ — the new social disease and its impact on global warming

It’s the ‘disease’ of people watching ever-more TV, plus playing ever-more video and computer games, plus being on the Internet ever more. (I plead a partial “guilty” to the last one.) The consequences are twofold. First, as the explosion in Type II diabetes show, we have more unhealthy, even fat, and ultimately self-destructive children; of course, many of them are now in adolescence or even early adulthood.

Second, we have these social issues, according to Oliver Pergams of the University of Illinois at Chicago:

“Videophilia has been shown to be a cause of obesity, lack of socialization, attention disorders and poor academic performance.”

How serious? This serious:

The biologists examined figures on backpacking, fishing, hiking, hunting, visits to national and state parks and forests. They found comparable statistics from Japan and, to a lesser extent, Spain. They found that from 1981 to 1991, per-capita nature recreation declined at rates from 1 percent to 1.3 percent per year, depending on the activity studied. The typical drop in nature use since then has been 18-25 percent, they said.

Third, because of this, we have less and less appreciation for nature, which authors of the study say may lead to increased environmental destruction:

“We don’t see how this can be good for conservation,” Pergams said. “We don’t see how future generations, with less exploration of nature, will be as interested in conservation as past generations.”

Beyond calling this “horrible,” I’d go beyond the study’s state of concern.

I’d say this is why an increasingly air-conditioning incubated generation of younger Americans is not likely to give too much of a damn about global warming as long as they can chill out with the A/C, zone out and stare out with the TV, computer or game set, and pig out with junk food.

Now, if Peak Oil (and Peak Natural Gas) will only do their work, and we get pricey enough electricity …