The average American child now spends more than seven hours a day in front of a screen —playing video games, watching TV, surfing the Internet, texting friends via cell phone—and the loss of contact with the natural world has implications not only for the well-being of the child but also for the future of the environment.

That’s the message in the documentary film Play Again, which screened 9 June at AAAS under the auspices of the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowships program.