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June 23, 2008
Summer Camp in 2008: Internet Rehab for Kids
My kids have been on the Internet since they were 3 years old. They have in fact grown up on the Internet. Now at 14, the Internet is a part of my sons daily routine and there are days when they spend more time on the Internet than I do. Each of them have discovered their passions and spend their time on the Internet exploring the things which interest them. The Internet is a part of their home.
Back when I was in school, I remember my summer vacation as the time once I was finished with school in June, I did not think about most of the kids in school until I returned in September. And I for one didn’t mind being free from my daily routine. I didn’t miss most of the people in school and enjoyed the opportunity to discover myself and discover my passions during the summer.
It was during the summertime when my hobbies flourished. Summer for me meant spending time late at night listening for distant stations on my AM radio. Summer offered me a lot more time to be spent on Ham Radio which was my gateway to the outside world. Summer was when “Field Day” took place which was something I looked forward to being part of. While I may have appeared to be alone with my hobbies, I was actually connected to the world. A world transparent to the others around me, but a world beyond my parent’s home. So I was never really alone. But generally speaking, I was “off the grid”, and not in daily contact with anyone from school.
Fast forward to the Summer of 2008 and for my kids who just finished the 8th grade, everything seems different now. And I believe the parents of kids who are 14 years old who are not active in the social media space will have little appreciation for how connected their own kids are these days. The generation gap between these kids and their parents has the potential of being the biggest in many decades.
Later this week I will be driving my kids to their camp and not picking them up for about a month. What I wonder about is how not having daily access to the Internet will effect their mindset and the mindset of the their friends also at camp.
My kids will be spending about a month in a place with: no cell phones, no IM, no email and no Facebook. They will be trading that for activities like: hiking in the mountains, swimming, baseball, camp fires and color war.
From the perspective of an admitted Internet Addict, I don’t know how I would react to 3 1/2 weeks of going “Cold Turkey” from the Net. Internet service outages aside, I have not intentionally looked to remove myself from being on the Internet for more than 24 hours since some time in 1993. Back in June 1998 I was unintentionally removed from the Internet for about 88 hours which still remains as my personal record.
During winter break six months ago, my kids were in daily contact with many of their friends who are part of their social networks on Facebook and AIM. In fact, thanks to Facebook, their vacation photos were shared on an almost real-time basis, status messages and wall posts reflected daily (sometimes hourly) events and my kids did not have to experience the feeling of being “disconnected” except when we were outside of WiFi and/or cell phone coverage areas.
Maybe my kids won’t feel the effects of being disconnected. Maybe my kids will just adjust to being at summer camp and enjoy the company of their friends and the new friends they are bound to make. I hope they will have fun and will enjoy themselves and forget about the internet for a little bit and not miss the greater feeling of being connected to their world. At camp they may discover new passions and come home with a bigger perspective about life.
And maybe these are just the words of an overprotective parent. But I feel that the people who run summer camps these days may want to consider that they are also running Rehab Clinics for young Internet Addicts and provide the proper resources needed to help kids deal with the transition of moving from an always on world to being totally disconnected from the world.
Summer Camps in 2008 need to be prepared for kids who will being with internet withdrawal symptoms. I’m sure summer camps have had to deal with kids in similar positions 8 years ago. But the 14 year olds of today are living in a world of broadband and during the past year some of them have discovered social media and have made the Internet an integral part of their daily life. More so now than in the past. While summer camps are well prepared to deal with kids who are home sick, dealing with kids with Internet addictions present different challenges and responsibilities.
As I write this, I do hope my kids have a great experience at summer camp and have the time of their lives. And maybe I will be able to learn a thing or two from them and how liberating it might feel to be disconnected from our internet reality for more than a day or two.
Tags: summer camp, kids, Internet Addict, Jeff Pulver
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Posted by jeff on June 23, 2008 10:11 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Drug treatment Centers are being run now a day privately and by government also. But first of all they need to educate our youth about the bad effects of chemical dependency. Until we have safe environment free from drug and alcohol addiction, it is very heard to provide treatment one by one.
http://www.edrugrehabs.com/
Posted by: Alcohol Rehab Center at August 5, 2008 05:47 AM
i have seen some terrific new sites for comedy. movies, tv shows and clips for free. They are high quality. See Hulu, ZoogaTV and TidalTV 3 popular video sites
Posted by: anthony at July 3, 2008 10:03 PM
are you still a radio amateur Jeff?
Julie
x
Posted by: julie K at June 30, 2008 08:45 AM
Jeff-
Each day I bike to work. The hour there and back are the only times I feel truly free throughout the day. I can't hear my phone ring, no twittering, IMing, blogging or blackberry. It makes me still appreciate the beautiful outside world we do live in.
Posted by: Lacy Kemp at June 27, 2008 03:58 PM
Jeff, loved the post but you definitely "win out" over the boys on always being online.... R
Posted by: RISA at June 24, 2008 11:33 PM
Hi Jeff,
I think this would be a great experience for your children in which they will learn new things and will gain new skills. As we say in Hebrew, LE-HAVDIL, but still worth noticing: in China things are much more extreme, with parents sending their video games addict's children to Medial Rehab Camp. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQyjAF_vqso
Posted by: VRider at June 24, 2008 10:40 AM
Jeff - interesting post and perspective and I've been following your similar comments on Twitter. I believe that as much as the internet has opened the world, connectedness is more than exchanging little quips, pictures or the like. True connectedness is the ability to engage beyond the passing comment of a great article you've read or a speaker you're listening to at a social media event. We should never dismiss the ability of the young to engage without fore (or afterthought) and to do what has come naturally to humans for centuries (eons). Adults overthink; that's what makes us adults I guess. Children have the unique ability to "do" without the constraints that we've subconsciously adopted or adapted to.
Natural adaptation is the key to survival. Just as we've embraced technology as part of our everyday, so can children embrace the natural as part of theirs. I have watched my three nephews (ages 10.5 to 13) embrace both the electronic and natural world with grace and ease and without much thought. Once engaged, they forget about anything but the moment. What a gift. And something we can all learn from.
Posted by: Liz at June 24, 2008 07:56 AM
Doh! My kids are going off to camp soon too... actually I think it'll be ME who's likely to curl up in the fetal position without my daughter twittering her every move. LOL!
Posted by: Donna Payne at June 23, 2008 11:17 AM
Jeff, this post was particularly compelling to me as me daughter is about to head off to her sleepaway camp. Although the kids are isolated electronically, they are immediately placed into a very different social community that quickly replaces their comfortable online cocoons. I think my daughter often feels liberated from her existing social networks when she is at camp and is free to "re-invent" herself. By the way, didn't we play each other in intercamp games back in the day?
Posted by: Warren Sukernek at June 23, 2008 11:13 AM