It doesn't take much to exhaust today's Japanese kids, who are too busy watching TV, playing video games or reading comic books to play outdoors, according to an Education Ministry survey released Thursday.
A majority of the surveyed school children said they tire easily, with a quarter saying they feel fatigued quite often.
Over 90 percent of the kids surveyed watch TV for more than an hour everyday. Nearly half of the school boys spend more than an hour per day playing video games, while about a quarter of the girls spend an hour or more reading comic books each day.
"Today's children tend to have less outdoor experience compared to their parents' generation ... partly because they spend too much time on TV, video games and cartoons," said Noriyuki Takeshita of the ministry's Life-long Learning Bureau.
Over 11,100 children -- aged 8, 10, 12 and 14 -- from 368 schools nationwide responded to the survey in July, the first of its kind conducted by the ministry. Nearly half of the kids polled have their own rooms, and 15 percent have a TV set for themselves.
Although about 90 percent said they have swum in the ocean or a river before, over 40 percent have never gone camping.