Why WAHA is a no-phone zone
I was recently at a friend’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah. At one point, I looked over at one of the kid’s tables. There were 10 kids, each one buried in their own phone. Not engaging, not talking, not connecting. It didn’t surprise me. But it made me sad.
According to Dr. Rachel Mitchell, Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto and Child and Youth Psychiatrist, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, “The device is available no matter what is going on in any given moment. Feel sad? Go on your phone. Bored? Go on your phone. Have an assignment to do but don’t want to do it? Go on your phone. It’s constant temptation and hard for adults to resist, let alone kids without fully developed brains. At some level it’s a coping strategy, which isn’t necessarily all bad, but learning to be self-aware of how much you are using it is the first step to moderating use. It’s also very important to learn other ways to manage and cope.”
That’s why we remain committed to our tech policy (for the full policy, see page 11 in our Wahanoguide). We want camp to be a supportive place where kids can learn how to manage and cope without that distraction.
Camp is about being present. We build our little bubble here every summer. The health of our community matters. Genuine connections are the foundation of it all.
And phones affect that. We don’t just think it. We know it.
In 2021, we amended our tech policy for CITs for the first summer post COVID. CITs were allowed to bring their phones and could use them just like staff. After the summer, we debriefed with that CIT group and their parents. The kids told us themselves – having access to their phones took away from the overall CIT experience and immersed them in worlds outside of camp.
One CIT told us, “After COVID, I really thought having a phone at camp when I was a CIT was going to be great. But it wasn’t. It took away from my experience and the best part of camp, which for me is being there with your friends and being AT camp.”
There are so many opportunities at camp for relational skill building (different from digital relational skill building, which is also important). Fostering resilience. Being in nature. Getting quiet. Feeling. Talking. Listening. Solving problems face to face. Experiencing things just for the sake of experiencing them, not curating them for someone else’s consumption and validation. Being yourself for you, and not for anyone else.
That’s the why behind our tech policy. We have this small window of time at camp where we have kids’ undivided attention and can introduce them to experiences that live outside the digital realm. Those types of opportunities, and all the development that comes with them, are becoming scarce.
We want to do everything we can to keep camp phone free, so kids have the chance to embrace all those opportunities and soar.
So we’re asking for your help. We all play a part in making camp a phone-free experience. It’s a collective effort. Please leave the phones at home. And trust that if your camper really needs to speak to you or you to them, we will make that happen for you.
Watch this video to learn more about our tech policy.