Cell phone, camp just don’t mix

Back in the old days, by which I mean less than a decade ago, the toughest decision parents had to make when choosing summer camps for their children was whether to ship them away for weeks at a stretch or shuttle them to local camps for a day at a time.

These days, a curious new wrinkle has been added to the age-old tradition of summer camp life. Parents are now faced with the thoroughly modern dilemma of having to decide whether they want their kiddies to be “plugged” or “unplugged” when they venture off into the woods.

According to a couple of newspaper reports I’ve read recently, so many children are showing up with cell phones, pagers, Walkmans and other high-tech gadgets in their duffel bags that camp operators across the country are having to confiscate the stuff and adopt strict electronics guidelines in order to maintain the rustic atmosphere of their summer retreats.

Some of the operators say they’re also facing increasing pressure from anxious parents who can’t imagine going a whole day without being able to talk to their kids by cell phone to make sure they’re safe – presumably from terrorists and bears that might be skulking around the woods and ready to pounce.

“Cell phones at camp? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole purpose?” asked my incredulous daughter, a veteran camper.

Of course it does. If the purpose of summer camp is to allow children to disconnect completely from their everyday routines for a while and perhaps get their first taste of independence from their parents, opponents say, cell phones, Game Boys and other electronic gadgets become distractions that threaten to turn the whole camp concept on its ear.

How are kids supposed to make new friends, especially in those first couple of lonely days, when they can whip out a cell phone from their backpacks and chat through the evening with their old buddies back home? Why would they want to sit around a campfire roasting marshmallows and singing folk songs when they can laze on their cots and zap digital baddies on their portable video games? And how many kids, the camp directors wonder, would eagerly swap the sounds of nature while on a hiking trip for the music streaming through the headphones of their CD players?

Yet most camps are making certain concessions to technology. According to the Christian Science Monitor, a survey by the National Camping Association found that 70 percent of camps in the country now use e-mail. Of those, 60 percent allow only a one-way communication between parents and children. Staffers print parents’ e-mails and distribute them to the campers, who then reply by old-fashioned letter.

While the other 40 percent allow kids to e-mail their parents directly, this nearly instantaneous convenience has been known to backfire. No sooner have the unhappy little campers poured out their misery by e-mail, some camp operators report, than the calls come in from their fretful parents, who demand to know what the heck is going on.

When it comes to summer camp, an old-fashioned digital divide is probably the best friend a kid could have.