Look to parents for your answer.

asthma, childhood obesity, laziness….poor parenting.(Just so the kids are quiet) mentality, computer age

Playing outside is boring.

This might sound silly, but it’s just harder to. When I was a kid, I lived in a condo, but it was still way easier to go outside and do something. There was a basketball court right outside, and a giant playground to do random stuff. Any time you were bored, you could just step out, and do whatever. It seem like nowadays, it’s getting harder to organize stuff like this. If you look outside, all your see is windows/empty driveways. There’s nowhere to… meet.

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. What happened to outside play was that paranoid parents listened to the news too much and started believing that there was a slimy guy in a dirty rain coat lurking around every playground and neighborhood. So when kids do play away from their ubiquitous Xbox, Wii etc, it is in some structured athletics or sports league where they have to shuttle the kids around at. And maybe to a small point the kids just got lazier too.

We live in a small village in England and its noticable that theres hardly ever any children playing in the park.
Could be down not only to being in front of a screen all the time,but also to fear induced by the tabloids that its “not safe out there, theres a perv hiding behind every bush”
Its really sad that its come to this.

My younger bro plays outside, does sports outside, bikes, and goes with friends.. AND does all that gaming stuff (consoles, portable consoles, online gaming)

I think it might just be the advancement of technology. For as long as I can remember, there had always been someone I knew that played video games. (Elementary school, and even now, senior at high school, the guys play Cod.) They’re pretty addicting. The graphics and games and stuff get better and better too. And as for facebook and stuff, and facebook app’s… they’re addicting.

Some parents may be too overprotective and not like when their child is out and about? haha who knows.

@Hypocrisy_Central, My mom does that, she reads all the news and thinks the world is horrible.

I love to go outside, sometimes when I’m done being outside and am exhausted, I’ll go in and go on facebook and such… Restaurant city! . lol

I played video games too. But that was mostly at nights, or afternoons when it was just too darn hot to step outsite

some people still play outside… But know I feel safer and more comfortable on Fluther then outdoors downtown.

@talljasperman haha good one!

Playing outside was never that attractive, especially for kids who lived in heavy snow areas. Kids used to spend a lot of time at the library, until malls were built, and reading comic books was a very common daily activity. Ever since TV appeared in everyone’s livingroom, kids have watched from getting home from school until bedtime.

Technology got more fun.

This is compounded by smaller families (fewer playmates), parents being too busy to supervise children, the best play equipment being replaced with boring structures that noone will ever get hurt on, the rise in popularity of other extra-curricular activities, urbanisation and smaller backyards, etc.

My children say Facebook is for old people. They get outside and they play games on Xbox.

What happened to parenting? If your children are spending too much time playing video games, take the privilege away.

it’s not that hard

@Sarcasm I lurve you, but playing outside is not boring! (and I’m really sad to see that you got as many great answers that you did, unless you were being sarcastic….then nevermind). ;)

@jonsblond, it’s not hard, as long as you catch it early. For many children, it’s a serious addiction.

I remember years ago, my parents tried to confiscate my little brother’s Gameboy because he was playing it at the dinner table. He threw it out the window. Broken glass all over the kitchen floor. Gameboy landed in the garden two storeys below, survived perfectly intact.

@iphigeneia For many children, it’s a serious addiction.

When parents don’t take control it is. Unfortunately many parents are too lazy busy to notice.

Or they don’t know how bad it’s going to get. Agreed that here the onus is on the parents to assert more influence than the media and peer pressure, but it’s important to remember that especially with young parents of young children it can be very difficult to face up to the consequences when these toys and games bring such great short-term results.

Times have changed. Years ago everyone sat on their porch and watched everyone elses children. It was a tight knit community. Today you don’t even know who your neighbors are. Everyone has to work to survive. Parents are lucky to get home by 6pm. Let’s face it people there is more crime today then 20 years ago. I don’t have children but if I did I would keep a very close eye on them.

Hasty.

I am also 23 years old and, whilst there were a few games consoles around when I was a kid, they were nowhere near as advanced as they are now. Time and technology has moved on and so now kids are far more interested in staying indoors and playing on the Xbox. This is not a new thing though. When my father was very young they didn’t even have a TV and so my brother and I watched more TV when we were kids than he ever did at that age. He moaned about how much TV my generation watched but that is nothing compared to how much TV kids watch now.

I also agree that people are a lot more paranoid to let kids go outside and play nowadays. My brother and I used to go out in the morning and my mother wouldn’t see or hear (we didn’t have mobile phones) from us until the evening. I don’t know many people that would be happy with their kids doing that now because of the media and how much we hear about pedophiles and murders. Sad but true.

I also think (and I am generalizing here) that many parents have gotten less creative and lazier when it comes to entertaining their kids. My parents used to take my brother and I out, even if it was just for a walk to the park, quite a lot. My dad was always playing football in the field with my brother and his friends when he wasn’t working and we’d often go on bike rides. All that was much cheaper than buying us games consoles and endless amount of games to go with them but it was also far healthier for us I would imagine. Nowadays it is far too easy (and I have seen this with my two young cousins) to stick a kid in front of the TV or a games console.

You can play games as long as you want during the day. But I don’t think going outside to play a sport for an hour or two is that tough to manage..

I’m quite lucky with my eldest two. They are 10 and 12 and as soon as they get in from school they want to go in the back garden to “exercise” run around or go on the trampoline. I don’t allow them out to play on school nights as I would rather they focus on academics however they walk the dog or go to the shop. Weekends, they go out to the park or to a big nature park or just hang out with their friends. They both have Facebook/ My Yearbook/ Bebo/ MSN etc however I limit the amount they go on them to once every few days. The eldest has a DS and can play that when she likes which is very rare too. I guess I have always tried to bring them up to be healthy kids and not go down the route I did.