Detachment from nature and the playground

An important paper on PNAS reports alarming reserach that points out that since 1987 visits to Nature Reserves and National Parks have decreased in USA in correspondence with the increase of electronic devices end time spent on computer. The fact that we are getting detacehd from Nature is obvious, but I think that the correlation in these studies is partly spurious. Media and technological devices certainly shape at least in part our minds - as suggested by Marshall McLuhan - but I think that the main force behinf this trend is birth decrease. Children do not play anymore with other children becuase there are few children around, and, being alone, turn to electronic devices instead. It is interesting the rise of social networks, that connect groups of friends that cannot meet directly. In other words,  think that it is urban familial structure and not urban technology the main culprit of the detachment from nature. People that grow alone never fully develop the ability to empathize and enter in relationship with others, and this leads to a lack of empathy for nature.