NEWS CATEGORIES:



NEWS ARCHIVE >>
SOFTPEDIA REVIEWS >>
MEET THE EDITORS >>
Home / News / Science

Science


Video Games vs. National Parks

People spend more and more time indoors

By Vlad Tarko, Senior Editor, Sci-Tech News

10th of May 2006, 08:13 GMT

Adjust text size:


After park visits gradually increased on the course of half a century, in 1988 a sudden decline had began and it never stopped. But why is this going on? Why are people going less and less to parks?

Oliver Pergams, a University of Illinois at Chicago ecologist, took a "don't think, just compute" approach to the problem. He took into consideration a large number of possible factors from playing video games to rising oil prices, to the rise in foreign travel, to crowding of parks, to family income etc. Then he performed a statistical analysis of the data, called multilinear regression,
which is capable of determining which factors are most linked to the problem in question - in this case parks visits.

"Many of the variables were highly significantly correlated with this decline in national park visitation," said Pergams. "Multilinear regression apportions which variables are the most significant in affecting the outcome."

The result was that video games, home movie rentals, going out to movies, Internet use, and rising fuel prices explained almost 98 percent of the decline! "It's fairly stunning," he said, although these methods prove only the correlation between factors and not causal relations. In other words it's possible that, for instance, both the decline in parks visits and the rise in home movie rentals to be caused by some other unknown factor.

"This is no smoking gun," Pergams said. "We're showing statistically that the rise in use of these various types of media, as well as oil prices, is so highly correlated with the decline in national park visits that there is likely to be some association."

Pergams ruled out many variables that one might have thought to be more relevant than video games, such as family income, age, the recent rise in foreign travel, or crowding in the parks. However, these variables are not correlated as strongly as home entertainment and fuel prices.

"My concern is that young people are simply not going outdoors or to natural areas, but are instead playing video games, going on the Internet or watching movies," Pergams said. "My longer-term concern is that I don't see how this trend, if it is in fact true, could be good for conservation efforts. But if the trends are correct, perhaps public awareness will lead to some solutions."
Read by 987 user(s) | Add comment | Link to this article TWEET THIS


Article rating:
Good (3.4/5) 9 vote(s)    

Subscribe to news | Print article | Send to friend

© Copyright 2001-2009 Softpedia
Contact:

 

 

SEARCH THE NEWS ARCHIVE :




Today's News
| Yesterday's News | News Archive


MORE RELATED ARTICLES:


Lions and Elephants in North America

Camera Captures Rare Asian Cheetahs

Ancient Earthworks Electronically Rebuilt

User opinions:

No user comments yet.
Be the first to express your opinion using the form below!

Share your opinion:

Your Name:
Your Email Address:
(will not be used for commercial purposes)
Solve this to prove you're not a bot: =
Your review/opinion:

 




Windows tabGames tabDrivers tabMac tabLinux tabScripts tabMobile tabHandheld tabGadgets tabNews tab

SUBMIT PROGRAM   |   ADVERTISE   |   GET HELP   |   SEND US FEEDBACK   |   RSS FEEDS   |   ENTER NEWS SITE   |   ENGLISH BOARD   |   ROMANIAN FORUM