Kid Survey: Nature Can’t Hold a Candle to TV & Games

As part of its support of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), airplane manufacturer Airbus recently conducted a survey of over 10,000 kids between the ages of 5-18 (from ten different countries) in a bid to explore the youngster’s perception of nature.

Asked what their favorite pastime was, 17.2 percent indicated it was watching TV, while 34.3 percent said it was playing computer games. 30 percent said that spending time outdoors was their favorite activity.

When queried on what was most important to them, 26 percent answered “playing on the computer,” and 14 percent answered “watching TV,” while saving the environment was tops to only 4 percent of the kids polled.

Looking at results broken down by geographic location (PDF), kids in Singapore were most likely (46.1 percent) to answer that playing PC games was their favorite activity, while U.S. youth were most likely (52 percent) to say that their favorite pastime was to spend time outdoors. U.S. kids were also the most likely (41.8 percent) to indicate that saving the environment was least important to them.

When asked what nature attribute they would most like to have in real life, the top answer from the children of nine countries was to “fly like a bird.” Only kids from Mexico answered differently, preferring instead (generally) to “swing in trees like a monkey.”


Via Spong, thanks Andrew!