Life Without Screens: This Camp Is a Teen’s Worst Nightmare

Hidden burner phones. Hunger strikes. Runaways. The director of a digital detox program for kids spills about how hard it is to tear kids away from their devices.
A camp counselor's body is made up of a tent full of children and teens holding shapes of phones tablets and other devices.
PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION: JOHANNA GOODMAN; GETTY IMAGES

Summer. For teens not at work, it’s hot, it’s boring, and it’s an ideal time to close the door and spend about every waking moment watching, playing, texting, streaming—anything but talking—on the phone. With almost half of teenagers in the US saying they’re online almost constantly, the adults in their lives are growing more desperate to drag them off. Families are establishing screen-free zones in their homes, states are banning phones in schools, and a new kind of summer camp has emerged: digital detox camps, which can cost around $2,000 a week, and promise to wean attendees off screens by going cold turkey for the summer.

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