Away but connected:
Sleepaway camps differ on e-mails and cell phones
By Vicki Hyman, The Star Ledger
There are a few kids like them at every sleepaway camp. Away from home for the first time, they are unnerved by their new surroundings and anxious for old comforts. You might spot them rooting around their cubbies and then sneaking off in spare moments. They return wretched and wild-eyed. They're desperate.
Yes, cell phone withdrawal can be difficult for a 12-year-old weaned on instantaneous connection and 24-hour communication. For most kids who attend a traditional sleepaway camp, that means no text messaging, no e-mail, no camera phones, no blogging. No iPods or BlackBerries or Sidekicks. Oh my.
Most camps have long barred electronic devices such as Walkmans or hand-held video games, which can break or disappear. But cell phones and e-mail, camp directors say, are even more antithetical to the purpose of sleepaway camp, tethering them to home when they should be making new friends.
"Part of the experience of going way is being away," says John Leach, the director of Adirondack Woodcraft Camps, an 80-year-old sleepaway camp on nearly 400 acres near Old Forge, N.Y.
"We're fortunate," he says. "We're in an absolute dead spot as far as cell phones are concerned. It makes it easier to explain."
Most of the nation's 7,000 resident camps ban cell phones, although some kids still try to sneak them in. That doesn't mean they can use them, says Judy Trigg, the administrative director of YMCA Camp Ralph S. Mason in remote Hardwick in Warren County. One kid hid a cell phone among her socks but eventually turned it in, reporting, "I've walked every place and couldn't get a bar."
Camp Mason camper Victoria Robinson, 14, says some of the girls who are new to sleepaway camp "just start freaking out," but they soon adjust. "They make new friends, they kind of forget about their cell phones and their TVs because they're having so much fun with the people they're around."
Camps also don't want to be responsible for colossal cell phone bills incurred by campers. The popularity of digital camera phones is also a "huge" issue, raising serious privacy concerns, says Ann Dolloff, executive director of the American Camp Association's New Jersey branch.
The Internet, however, has made more of an inroads into camp life. The day after he graduated from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in 1999, Ari Ackerman started driving around the country to sell camp directors on his idea for web-based, password-protected photo galleries and one-way e-mail.
Now Bunk1.com has 2,000 camps signed up, and Ackerman has added video galleries as well. A longtime camper himself, he says computers shouldn't disrupt the camping experience. His service, he says, probably benefits the parents more than the kids.
"Homesickness is more the parent feeling home alone, as opposed to the child feeling homesick, which goes away within a day. Parents can stay connected without being intrusive."
It can also be a moneymaker for the camp, which can charge parents, say, $1 per e-mail.
Most of the camps treat the e-mails as normal, if less private, mail and distribute them at meal time. "We probably print 250 e-mails a day," Trigg says. How many campers? "Probably 220."
Christopher Thurber is a camp consultant who spends the school year as a psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy and the summer patrolling the waterfront at YMCA Camp Belknap in Tuftonboro, N.H. He warns that allowing cell phones or e-mail can erode the sense of independence that camp is supposed to instill, and lectures camp directors about the thoughtful application of technology.
"You'll probably find some camps that will thoughtlessly apply technology to their program," he says. "It's like buying any other piece of equipment. Just because someone makes the 50-foot inflatable clown doesn't mean you need to buy it for your camp waterfront."
Camp directors have mixed feelings about posting pictures and video on the Internet. Sure, it's fun for parents to see their kids enjoying themselves, but what if they don't look like they are? Why is little Austin frowning? Why is Maya standing off to the side? Where is my Jacob? The phones in the camp offices start ringing.
"If we were to ring a family's doorbell," explains Donna Okin of Morris Plains, who runs Camp Connection, a national summer camp placement service, "their children aren't sitting around their houses smiling."
Ackerman's advice: "Please be careful about the pictures you post."
Specialty camps haven't been so quick to ban cell phones or restrict e-mail, probably because there is less of a "getting-away-from-it-all" atmosphere at band camp, hockey camp or even spa (!) camp. Morristown-based UK Elite, which runs soccer camps throughout the Northeast, has no policy on cell phones, but encourages parents to give their kids prepaid telephone cards.
The 2,000 or so soccer players who attend the residential programs don't bring their laptops -- or miss them, said co-founder Andy Roderick.
"You're so busy doing the things that you actually want to do and things you sign up for," he said.
But limiting technology at computer camp would be like banning "color war" competitions at a traditional sleepaway. At Emagination Computer Camps, where campers swim and play soccer when they're not building PCs or dabbling in 3-D animation, kids can keep their cell phones, bring along their laptops and spend their downtime e-mailing friends.
"If a camper is not having a good time or having an issue, I'd rather them be able to contact their parents immediately," says Mike Currence, director of camps. "Especially after Sept. 11, a lot of families want to be able to get hold of their kids."
He concedes that homesick campers aren't helped if they're on the phone every night with their parents, but for the most part, the kids want to be there. "The kids who come to our camp love technology. They love computers. They're in absolute heaven."
Whatever the camp's communications policy, parents need to be comfortable with it, Dolloff said. "Sometimes they look at it, if my child has a cell phone, they can reach me if anything goes wrong. There's a lot of stuff going on that scares parents." On the other hand, most camps believe they have an obligation to give children an experience that differs from their day-to-day lives.
Camp Belknap, for example, does not permit any e-mail. Instead, a U.S. Postal Service boat pulls up to the dock and sounds a horn each day around lunch time to signal mail call. Campers must put pen to paper and scrounge around for a stamp. So must their parents.
Thurber, who co-wrote "The Summer Camp Handbook," instructs parents, FYI, to make their letters meaningful and personal.
"This is not your office colleague down the hall that you're sending a memo to about the 2:30 meeting," he said. "This is your flesh and blood. There's something very personal about someone's penmanship and writing that you just can't duplicate in an e-mail. It's a kind of deeply personal expression that we are unfortunately drifting away from."
While most parents don't make a camp's decision to wire -- or not to wire -- a deciding factor in choosing where to send their children, some definitely appreciate the time spent away from the computer.
Victoria Robinson's grandfather, Daniel Robinson III of Metuchen, sits on Camp Mason's board of directors. "The physical exercise is equally as important as the mental gymnastics," he says. "They should get out and breathe the fresh air and commune with nature, lest they forget, I would say, their personalities and their being."
While she's away at camp, Victoria doesn't miss her electronic gadgets a bit. "At the end, I'm kind of like, I'm going to miss my friends and then I'm like" -- here she makes a sound akin to a dog setting on a particularly meaty bone -- "TV, Internet, talking to my friends on a cell phone, and I get, 'Yes, I'm home.' The first thing I do is run up to my computer and check my e-mails."
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