
Young adults hardly ever walk, 'because of technology' - Libertatea
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57608303-71/young-adults-hardly-ever-walk-because-of-technology/
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kevingadd
The article makes a mention of people not having friends to walk with because
all their friends are 'virtual', which seems a little lazy.

In the US, a real problem is that our population is so distributed that even
if you had people to hang out with in person at one point, it's pretty likely
that none of them live within walking distance of you. So to meet up with
friends or acquaintances, you have to drive (or use public transit, if you're
lucky enough to live in a place where that's possible). Once you've driven
somewhere to meet with someone, if you're going to go somewhere else you'll
probably drive too, and then you'll drive home.

In my case I almost never had cause to walk for I guess what would be
'typical' reasons, despite not really growing up with a ton of technology or
lots of 'virtual friends'. I just never had a reason to walk over to visit
someone, so it was limited to walking to the grocery store or to the bus stop
for college. Everyone I knew lived a 15+ minute drive away. Reaching college
on public transit took over 3 hours, so I ended up getting a car pretty quick.

In someplace more dense like the UK, are people's friends all within walking
distance?

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skidoo
No offense (seriously), but isn't making excuses a symptom of laziness?

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sliverstorm
Is _not_ walking to see friends on a whim because they live 90 minutes away
(on foot), making excuses?

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lambda
One question I always struggle with is why don't I have more friends among my
neighbors?

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sliverstorm
Because we don't reach out to our neighbors the same way anymore, because they
already have lives as do we. It's a self-reinforcing trend.

I suspect the _origin_ of the trend was, once we had the freedom to select
friends out of a greater geographic region we happily did so, because there
really is no guarantee the ten people living nearest to you are into the same
things you are.

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anigbrowl
I've recently made the unintentional discovery that this and many other
problems of modern life, self-improvement, and so on can be obviated by the
simple expedient of getting a dog.

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jackweirdy
The only link cited in that article seems to be an all-age study of walking
habits, where the 18-25 year old habits gets a 1 sentence mention.

[http://www.bupa.com/media-centre/press-
releases/uk/17-oct-20...](http://www.bupa.com/media-centre/press-
releases/uk/17-oct-2013-research-from-bupa-reveals-we-are-a-nation-of-desk-
potatoes/)

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djillionsmix
It's because old people built a nation of shitty unwalkable suburbs, then
blamed the consequences of their fuckups on their kids.

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JumpCrisscross
As a New Yorker, this article seems to delineate the rural/suburban-urban
divide more than anything about age or the effect of technology.

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princess3000
Yeah this seems pretty worthless without separating responses by location.
Living in the city you're going to walk a ton without even thinking about it,
and most suburbs/rural areas are set up to make walking anywhere an 18-24
year-old would want to go difficult, if not impossible.

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arbutus
This seems fairly superficial. I suspect that if you factored in where people
are living (suburbs versus urban areas), age would seem to make less of a
difference.

I'm barely within the 18-25 range, and I walk everywhere. I live downtown and
don't drive, and I suspect that I get far more exercise than a middle-aged
person who lives in the suburbs and drives to work, the grocery store, and
wherever else they need to go.

The article comes off very much as old people wanting to look down on the
habits of the young, but I very easily feel the same way about suburbanites
who drive into my neighbourhood, almost kill all the pedestrians at cross-
walks, and block up the streets by milling about and walking as slowly as
possible from the parkades to the restaurants.

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ondrae
This article is just an ad for some app.

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ssully
This is actually topic that could be potentially interesting with some proper
research and actual writing. Instead this is simply an ad for an app.

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minor_nitwit
My work made me carry a pedometer. It really surprised me some days, when I
would just stay home at my apartment how little I walked. Sub 500 steps in a
day. Basically, being at home is being on your ass all day, but I would think
I would move around at least a little more than that.

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xfour
WTF on the headline picture, why are you picking a guy preparing to play pond
hockey as walking, I mean before or after this picture one can assume he's
going to be doing more strenuous activity, the connection is lost on me...
confused.

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beedogs
It's not just young adults; it's starting earlier than that. I see parents
happily wheeling their 7-year-olds around in strollers all the time because
it's easier than having to keep up with them. Everyone's just lazy as hell
these days.

