A great concern for environmentalists today is that children born from 2000 and on will be disconnected to nature. Kristi S. Lekies and Nancy M. Wells’s Nature and the Life Course study discusses what childhood experiences are significant indicators of adult environmentalism. Jean Eisenhower’s account of her experiences with nature is like a spiritual diary, whereas Peter Wohlleben takes a more scientific approach. Richard Louv supports a balance of technology and a connection to nature for children. A digital, urban, and globalized era is the biggest obstacle to children today in connecting to nature, so technology usage needs to be limited in order to connect with nature and conserve the environment.
Because children are most likely to be environmentalists as adults when they are exposed
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Children born from 2000 and on are the first generation to have widespread technology, including cellphones, tablets, and social media, available to them at such a young age. As a fourth grader quoted by Richard Louv can testify, today’s children “like to play indoors better ‘cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are” (qtd. in Lekies and Wells 18). There is scientific evidence that shows childhood experiences in the wilderness, as well as, to a lesser extent, childhood experiences in “domesticated nature” (12), defined as gardening and related activities, are critical in determining adult environmentalism. Thus, it is possible that most children today do not make the crucial nature connection because they are habituated to technology instead of wild or domesticated