From an item in the Washington Post a couple weeks back, noting how national parks attendance is down because people are too busy with videogames, DVDs and, ahem, the Internet.

Pergams and Zaradic even coined a term for this increased attachment to staring at the movie, TV or computer screen: “videophilia,” which they describe as “the new human tendency to focus on sedentary activities involving electronic media.”

“If you’re spending an hour or more a day on these things, you’ve got to give something up,” Pergams said.

In the news biz we’re often obliged to take very large studies and boil them down to their most salient points. But there are times like this when the boiling gets out of hand. Think about what that quote says: Joe Consumer has just finished dinner and is deciding how to consume his few hours before bedtime. “Let’s see, I can walk 12 feet to the couch or I can drive 150 miles to visit a national park.” Sort of false set of choices, don’t ya think?

I know, a trivial distraction from the story’s main point, which is that nature conservation is in trouble of fewer and fewer people want to have anything to do with nature, but it’s just one of those little logic things that gets under my skin now and again.