3 minute read
Message From the Publisher
You Can’t Create Real Memories with a Smartphone Camera
I grew up in rural Southern Vermont, with a rather famous trout stream running practically through the backyard and acres upon acres of woods to get lost in. I was about 11 when my first computer came into my life, a simplistic and laughably low-memory (by today’s standards) Commodore VIC-20. While I quickly became obsessed with it, learning to code so I could try and recreate the simple video games at the arcade and the even more rudimentary ones on the Atari 2600 game console, none of these things were imbued with the dopamine-hijacking superpowers of a modern smartphone or game console.
As a result, even after that technology came into my life, I still shut it off sometimes and went outside. I recall taking the cassette tape I stored my programs on (that’s how it was done back then), dropping it into a standard portable audio-tape player and then climbing the tall fir tree in the backyard with a best friend.. The computer program played aloud, provided a science-fiction backdrop of beeps and bloops and chirps to serve as a soundtrack, while we pretended to be astronauts venturing to a distant, dangerous planet.
I now have four kids of my own. The youngest is 12. Their lives have been immersed in a sea of increasingly sophisticated technology since they were born. It’s a technology that is marvelous beyond imagining compared to that of 1981, and designed very strategically to capture its user’s attention and never let it go.
I’m grateful that, despite that, they’ve all grown up with a penchant for being outdoors. As a family, we’ve spent a lot of time in the mountains, rambling through the woods and wading through streams. But we all, myself included and perhaps especially so, struggle to unplug these days.
Sometimes the best way to do that is to go somewhere unplugging is an intentional part of the program.
According to Curtis Hines, in “Embracing a Screenfree Summer” on page 8, “There is one last refuge in our chronically online world, a place still holding the line and keeping technology at bay: overnight summer camp. Most overnight camp directors have been saying the same thing for more than 30 years: leave your phone/iPod/electronic games at home, because too often they distract from the community and nature around us.”
The magical gift we’re given when we do unplug is attention. We pay attention to ourselves, our environment, the people around us. And they pay attention to us, as well.
Some of the most powerful experiences of social development I recall were at camp. And some of the most exceptional examples of mentorship. There are great moments of kindness and wisdom I recall from counselors that still move me, and resonate with me as fundamental truths, more than 40 years later. Check out “Role Model Magic at Camp” by Doug Sutherland, on page 14, for more.
No matter which you choose, a summer camp is one place where we don’t need our smartphone cameras to create indelible memories. In fact, putting away the phone may be exactly what’s needed to truly have the experiences that last a lifetime.
