Enough is enough.
Frustrated parents who are fed up with their young teens’ excessive screen time are turning to drastic measures, like signing them up for curated digital detox programs at camps like Reset Summer Camp.
This isn’t your ordinary summer camp. This time away from home for minors aged 13 to 18 is meant to help children with everything from social anxiety to depression to gaming and social media addiction.
While there, enrolled kids spend four weeks in college dorms, sans tech devices, after they check them in at the door upon arrival.
Ringing up at just under $8,000 per camper, the temporary “Luddite” lifestyle doesn’t come cheap, but the outcome, a happy life without the reliance on screens, seems to be worth it for parents.
In past years, Reset Summer Camp, which has been helping both parents and teens since 2017, was held in Santa Barbara, California, Asheville, North Carolina and even Quebec, Canada.
Tech addiction is not just an issue youngsters are facing. Adults who can’t pry their hands away from their devices can sign themselves up for Camp Reset — a four-day adult summer camp in rural Canada with the same goal in mind as Reset Summer Camp.
Jeff Harry, a public speaker who attended Camp Reset in Ontario in 2022, found the phone-free experience to be invaluable to reconnecting with an inner sense of peace and clarity.
“The camp is about rest, play and making space to reconnect with the land, others and ourselves,” Harry told The Kit.
But adults are more self-aware than tweens and tweens so parents still need to explore all of their options to help curb their offspring’s tech dependency.
Some parents, like Tiffany Huntington — a mom of two tweens who works in education — make it a point to stay up-to-date on the latest tech-obsessed risks. Still, the possibility of her children somehow getting into trouble with strangers online or cyberbullying gives her major anxiety.
Another safeguard Huntington uses is a popular Facebook page called Officer Gomez, which is run by Idahoan public school resource officer David Gomez, in the interest of uncovering common kid workarounds for parental media control tactics, as originally reported on by the Washington Post.
Some new tricks include using a Bible app to gain access to off-limits forums and educational apps for unrestricted YouTube access.
Even with her fear and subsequent precautionary actions, the phone-first nature of modern life has her considering gifting her 14-year-old with a smartphone when he starts high school.
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