By Noah Stein
On the last day of camp, all of our campers who are flying home ride buses to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Once we arrive and get everyone checked in and through security, we take over an empty gate where we wait together before flights start boarding. When we arrived, I expected a typical mix of post-camp emotions. Of course some campers would be groggy from the early morning wakeup, and some would want to make the most of their last few moments with their friends until next summer. But what caught me off guard was how quiet the boys were. Something had clearly changed after the bus ride. Then it occurred to me: they had their phones back.
Looking down a row of seats, I saw camper after camper staring into their screens. After a tech free summer, the contrast was abrupt. At camp, so much of what matters is the people we’re with and the place we’re in, but in that moment what seemed to matter most to many of the campers was whatever was going on on their phones. Ok, I’ll concede, it’s hard to be appreciative of the place you’re in when you’re in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport…but sitting next to your best friends in the world and staring at a phone? Come on! So our counselors did what great counselors do, and they counseled the campers into, well, putting away their phones and being campers! We played card games, reminisced about the best cruiser days, and debated whether Louis is better than Kaplan at the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” (it’s close). We laughed and smiled and when we said goodbye to our friends…we cried. For those brief few moments before everyone departed it felt like camp once again, despite the phones.
After that day in the airport, I began noticing other similar situations outside of Camp. At restaurants I often see families sitting around a table staring down at their phones. I side-step people walking on the sidewalk more focused on what’s in their palm than where they’re going. Sometimes, I spend time with friends and notice that most of the group is on their phones. Of course I’m guilty too. I ski quite a bit here in Colorado and I know I’ve missed parts of great conversations on chairlifts when I chose to take out my phone. (I also dropped my phone off a lift and lost it once, so I really would not recommend taking out your phone on a chairlift!) I wonder what we’re all missing as we stare into our screens. What conversations around the table or sights along the street or precious moments with friends do we lose as we scroll. What would happen if, instead, we looked up at the world right around us?
Our campers knew what they were missing at the airport because it only took a quick nudge from their counselors to help them snap out of their cyber-lives and back into the analog world where the summer wasn’t quite over yet, where they still had valuable time with their friends. Our campers know that at camp, conversations have more depth. Instead of looking down at devices, they look up. They take in everything that’s going on around them and engage with the present moment. Without screens, camp is a place where attention is undivided, friendships deepen quickly, and we remember what it’s like to simply be where we are, with the people around us.
As the summer approaches, I find myself feeling grateful that for a couple months each summer, we all get to escape the gravitational pull of our devices. I am grateful that at Camp Nebagamon presence is the norm, not the exception. It’s not about pretending our phones don’t exist while we’re at Camp, it’s about recognizing the amazing things that happen when we put them aside for a while, so that when we go home at the end of the summer, we remember our time away from tech and can be more thoughtful about how and when we use it.
Soon the phones will be turned off and the magic will begin. I can’t wait.
