Unlike driving and talking, when I'm driving around a one ton hunk of metal that could kill people if I'm too distracted
Also how is walking around the town boring? You get more time to see what's around you and if there's an interesting spot you can stop and check it out.
Another user here told me the average american hike is 3 miles and I have not been able to get that off my brain since. That's the shit I do with a friend on a hangover to get some fresh air
I mean I get the socioeconomic reasons, I think what irks me most is calling 3 miles a hike. That's a walk. It's fine to do a walk, it's just not hiking
In most of the popular hiking spots in my state, once you go a mile down a trail there's like nobody around.
IMO it's more about duration than mileage. You can't call it a hike if it's under an hour, that's a walk. I'm of the opinion that if you can do it comfortably without drinking water it's probably a walk. That said, three miles can definitely be a hike, there are plenty of trails in the northeast US that will give you >2000 feet of elevation gain in that distance.
Much like the BMI is useless if you're a bodybuilder statistic I'm fairly certain the average hike in the US or anywhere is not made up of a significant enough amount of hiking straight up a vertical wall to make this statistic entirely worthless