Let me get this out of the way. I like my phone.

I love being able to text other camp directors, see what's happening in the world, make quick connections with folks, answer your questions instantly, all of it.

Phones make running camp waaaay easier in a million different ways.

But this summer, like a lot of other summers, I spent loads of time thinking about phones and camp at the same time.

Screentime “battles” parents are fighting at home. Snapchat drama. Tiktok rabbit hole/ doomscrolls. All the stuff that makes parenting (and, honestly, being a kid) more complicated now than it used to be.

Not having a super clean answer (though maybe a super clean feeling) about how phones fit into camp life, it made sense to take the question to the experts: your kids.

Asked them kinda directly, what they thought about spending 6.5 weeks without a phone chirping in their pocket, just waiting to be taken out and scrolled through.

The answers told us just about everything.

What your kids said

Since K&E runs as separate boys and girls camps, getting honest answers is way easier.

For the Senior Hill boys, it was just a straight up question:

“What if you could have your phones at camp?”

They took some time to think about it, and one nice thing about camp is there is plenty of time to sit and think about stuff instead of just popping off with an insta-reaction.

“Maybe once a week?”

“Like an hour on Sundays?”

“We could check in with friends back home…”

They ran through some different possibilities. And remember, these are kids who’ve been managing their own social lives (online and offline) for years. The know exactly what they’re missing without a phone in the pocket.

After talking it through, they landed with:

“I could handle it, but other people couldn’t…”

Which was proxy for → phones would change a place they love.

Meanwhile, two middle school Evergreen girls made this their official camp project. Grabbed clipboards and started surveying everyone they could find.

Research question: “Should we have phones at camp?”

Almost everyone said NO. Only one out of dozens said she’d want her phone at camp.

This wasn’t about giving answers they thought adults would want to hear. There was no incentive to not just be honest. Just making a genuine choice about their vision of summer.

And look, I’m sure both these groups, the second they left camp, were catching up on lost time, Snapping away. Makes sense.

But a 6.5-week respite is worth a ton.

Why it matters

Kids understand something crucial: phones change how we connect with each other.

They 100% get it.

And honestly, they 100% want the time without it. Even if it started as a K&E rule.

The “permission” to be away from scrolling, checking, responding, scrolling, checking, responding is kinda invaluable.

It’s not some anti-tech edict.

It’s a pro-connection piece which would be compromised without full group buy-in.

That’s what they get at camp. The ability to see what it’s like when everyone is off their phones and how it would compromise if even a few got back on.

It’s tough (probably impossible) to recreate that almost anywhere else.

What it means at camp

Screentime battles out in the wild are rough.

Setting limits.

Managing apps.

Negotiating daily usage.

It’s exhausting, even with ourselves.

The good news is that for weeks in the summer, everyone gets a break, one that has unanimous buy-in.

Heck, even staff see the difference. These young folks in their late teens and 20s are also living without phones all day, sometimes for the first time ever.

They want it that way, too.

The Evergreen girls with the clipboard were using the results for a school project.

The conclusion?

Camp works because it’s one of the few places left where no one is in an attention competition with their device.

That’s a huge W.

And we plan to keep it that way.

You got this,

Jack

PS - Registration for next summer is open.

On the fence? Just reply to this email, “Jack, can we chat?”

114 Eagle Pond Rd, Wilmot, NH 03287
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