Tech-No

Just the other day, I was reflecting on our young adult population on this college campus. I was thinking to myself how beautiful a fall day it was, yet how many students would miss that, walking around with their heads fully engrossed in their phones. And every time I show up at the bus stop, the first thing I see almost every student do is whip out their phone and nonchalantly kiss society goodbye.

When I work out at Camp, we forfeit our right to technology by becoming invested in our campers for the duration of our time there. I think too many people, myself included, are overly dependent on their technology, whatever that technology may be. I obsessively check my email, Twitter, and messages throughout the day, when in reality I’m not that popular that I have that much going on socially. I take pride in replying quickly to emails, but by not doing so no one will be offended or put off.

I truly love being forced to put aside my technology (aside from my digital watch, an essential item for the outdoor camp lifestyle) in settings like these and not worry about any of that kind of stuff. In fact, after engaging in that lifestyle for eight weeks of the summer, there were times at the beginning of this school year where I flat out forgot where I put my phone, because I had deviated from being so reliant on it.

It can be done. There were about 30 other counselors besides me who made it through the summer seeing our phones or tablets or computers for a grand total of about four hours a week. While it may seem weird at first to not have that constant in your pocket, eventually it wears off and you forget why it would be there in the first place.

Another thing that I believe people do too often is using phones to avoid being social. Personally, I try not to do this, but I can’t count how many times I get on the bus into campus and everyone on the bus is messing with their smart phone. Just this morning I couldn’t help but notice how every student on one side of the bus was messing with their phone, half with headphones in. Or how many times I go out to dinner with friends and virtually everyone at the table has their phone out doing something on it. My rule is that I can check something on my phone, but only if almost nobody else is using theirs when with a group of people.We need to remember how we lived before technology took over our lives. Except we need to rely on each other and ourselves to do this, because frankly, there’s no app for that.