Tech-free summer camps show quick social and emotional benefits for children

At a Pennsylvania tech-free camp, children adapt to life without screens, experiencing improved social skills and independence despite initial challenges, highlighting the growing appeal of device-free childhood experiences.

For many children in the smartphone era, sleepaway camp has become one of the few places where a phone simply does not fit into daily life.

At a tech-free camp in Pennsylvania, 13-year-old Emma Bobson spent the first days repeatedly reaching for a device that was not there. The middle school pupil from Long Island, New York, who normally spends four to six hours a day on her phone, said it took several days before the reflex faded. At home, her time is filled with TikTok, FaceTime and iMessage. At camp, the lack of Wi-Fi and the ban on devices created a very different routine.

That experience is hardly unusual. According to the American Camp Association, about 90% of camps prohibit technology use, and many have done so for decades. Some camps still rely on handwritten letters to keep families in touch, though a few now scan them and send them on by email. The arrangement may feel old-fashioned to Gen Alpha children, many of whom have never written a letter outside camp, but directors and parents say the separation from screens can quickly change the social atmosphere.

For parents, that absence can be the point. Meredith Worth, whose three children attend a tech-free camp in north-east Pennsylvania, told Business Insider that the value lies in giving children a place where they cannot simply retreat to a screen. She said camp helps them become more independent and more comfortable talking to people from different places without a phone acting as a crutch.

Camp staff say the first hurdle is often emotional rather than technical. Andy Hicks, a director at Greenwood Trails in Connecticut, said some children find handing over their phone harder than parting from their parents. He said the awkwardness is most obvious at the first shared meal, when campers are still quiet and unsure of one another. To ease that tension, counsellors placed icebreaker cards on tables so children could start talking. By the end of dinner, he said, the room felt noticeably more relaxed.

The effect can be just as visible at bedtime. Wendy Siegel, who owns Tyler Hill Camp in Pennsylvania, said today’s campers often struggle more than previous generations to settle down at night. She linked that to the habits children bring with them from home, where many fall asleep with a show playing or a phone in their hand. At camp, without that background noise, it can take longer for the bunk to go quiet.

The social impact is not always immediate, but some campers say it becomes easier once the first few days pass. Bobson said camp pushes children to deal with conflict in person rather than through Snapchat or text messages, where arguments can be replayed, screenshot and shared. In her view, that makes it harder to avoid one another and easier to work things out directly. She and her mother both said the phone-free setting also reduces the pressure of online performance, where children are constantly aware of who is watching, tagging or reposting.

Research on screen time and youth wellbeing has helped fuel the appeal of these programmes. Camp Highlander, in a recent post on electronics-free camps, said time away from devices can reduce stress and improve mood among adolescents, while the American Camp Association’s National Camp Impact Study found that 58% of young people said camp helped them appreciate being present and cut down distractions. At the same time, broader research on phone restrictions in schools has shown mixed results. A recent study on Seattle and other US districts found that phone bans reduced use during the school day, but produced little measurable change in test scores, suggesting that the strongest gains may be social rather than academic.

Even then, camp does not fully erase the pull of social media. Hicks said a group of 13-year-old girls this summer recreated an old camp photograph, then asked for it to be removed after it appeared online and embarrassed them. The episode, he said, showed how quickly children who have spent weeks away from their phones can still become conscious of how they look on the internet.

When camp ended, Bobson went straight back to her phone, calling friends, checking TikTok and texting bunkmates she had just left behind. But she said the break still mattered. In her view, camp only works because the devices are gone.