Last Child In The Woods Summary

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Looking at Nature
There are so many distractions in our world today that take our minds from the real world to a virtual one. Richard Louv is one of the many people who admit this. Louv is the author of Last Child in the Woods. In this essay, he outlines the media distractions that turn our minds to a virtual reality. This is especially evident in children. Louv, in his essay, points out that children have so many things to distract them as they don’t have a developed enough mind to truly appreciate nature. In this essay, Louv relates many life experiences to describe the distractions of our world. Louv uses reference Elaine Brooks in this essay. Brooks warns, “True, our experience of natural landscape often occurs within an automobile looking …show more content…

Louv makes it very apparent in his essay that media devices engross the minds of humans and take their attention away from nature. As Louv points out, vehicles are one of the main places a person can see nature without distractions. Humans tend to look out the window when they are passengers in a vehicle. They study nature and can see nature in all its beauty. Louv argues that the visual connection between people and nature in a vehicle is even optional now. Louv states, “A friend of mine was shopping for a new luxury car to celebrate her half-century of survival in the material world. She settled on a Mercedes SUV, with a Global Positioning System: just tap in your destination and the vehicle not only provides a map on the dashboard screen, but talks you there. But she knew where to draw the line.” As pointed out by the author, vehicles in this day in age have so many new options to both increase efficiency while driving, but also to distract the passengers. Brooks makes light of this situation,”‘The salesman's jaw dropped when I said I didn't want a backseat television monitor for my daughter,’ she told me. ‘He almost refused to let me leave the dealership until he could understand why.’” Louv’s friend knew the value of nature and decided against a rear-seat and in-dash multimedia devices as she believed that it was important for her and her children to look outside and see the beauty of nature. Louv than transitions in his essay asking many questions on why people have made so many

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