Nowadays, the number of people of the young generation’s participation in outdoor leisure activities is noticeably declining. I believe that the reason stems from the indoor distractions and the fact that many people are situated far from nature. In order to revert this trend, solutions have to be implemented involving educating the youth and recreating the outdoor experience for urban inhabitants.
The primary cause for young people spending less time outside is the temptation of online entertainment. With the constant development of the digital industry, more and more modern recreational incentives have been created to satisfy the new generation’s demand. In other words, children, teenagers to young adults often utilise their free time on playing online video games, watching movies on Youtube and socializing on public platforms. These options fully satisfy their needs of energy refreshment after a long section of study or work, which entirely eliminate the need to exercise outside of their comfortable homes. Furthermore, city dwellers would struggle to locate available outdoor locations for nature exploration due to the far distance. More specifically, deforestation, along with other forms of land clearance are used to construct more cities, suburban areas together with complex infrastructure for the increasing population. Therefore, people living in these parts of the world are usually surrounded by stores, factories and tall buildings with the absence of natural scenery, which leaves them no choice but to avoid outdoor activities.
To eradicate this problem, drastic measures must be taken with the education of outdoor exercise’s benefit to the youth as the first approach. By explaining the physical and mental merits of hiking in the mountains or basking in the morning’s sunlight, we can dramatically change the perception of young people. For instance, five minutes of light jogging in the morning can give you a boost of energy and doses of vitamin D from the sun, which solidifies your physical endurance and mental aptitude. Another approach to motivate urban youth is recreating outdoor experiences for city inhabitants who don’t have access to natural sites. Various modern cities have already implemented this solution by introducing sports centers that cater to indoor rock climbing and diving. These attractive activities are able to draw in numerous young customers who crave nature outings but lack the time or money to travel.
Overall, digital entertainment and urbanized areas have been the main factors for the dwindling number of young adults taking part in outdoor activities. However, we can prevent this from continuing by promoting the upsides of going outside, together with the construction of pseudo nature locations that simulate the atmosphere of wild exploration.