Band 5+: Many young people do not spend their holidays and weekends doing outdoor activities like hiking and climbing in natural environments. Why is this the case? How can they be encouraged to go out?

A lot of children do not spend their leasure time doing outdoor activities such as hiking and climbing in nature. There are several factors of this situation and ways to encourage them to go out.

There are plenty of reasons why young people are not into doing outdoor activities while their holidays or weekends. On of them is addiction to social media. Nowadays, all children have their smartphones and they do whatever they want. They scroll up on social media from dawn to dusk which leads to lower concentration and reduction in face to face conversation with their peers and relatives. It also affects their behavior which can be problem in the future with talking to someone for longer period of time. Another reason is that the comfort of staying in their home. Almost all young people have tennis and another activities to play at their houses which can be energetic. They have money to buy almost any kind of thing such as newly video games. Consequently, they do not feel the atmosphere of outdoor activities in natural environments. For example, my cousin has all comfort at his home and he is not interested in doing outdoor activities in environments.

There are also several ways to encourage them to go out. Firstly, schools need to organize hiking and climbing activities or even picnic in nature. They do not have the reasons to not come that gathers which can affect to alter or reduce being in social media for hours. Instead of it, they spend their quality time with their friends or casual acquaintances in nature places with doing sports such as hiking and rock climbing. The second one is that social media campaigns should provide healthy lifestyles. They put on limits in using social media for young people which can support the idea of being outdoors. For instance, Japan has similar system and it’s children are passionate about doing sports in environmental places.

In conclusion, there are abundant factors of this problem such as comfort in their lives or social media but it is real thing to encourage them doing activities while they are in outdoors.