Business Week has an article on the rise in summer camps that do not allow gadgets like gameboys and cell phones. I worked many jobs at a North Carolina Summer camp over the course of 5 years in the late 1990's and saw the rise and gadgets and eventual move to ban them. Most agree that a summer in a cabin with 12 peers, a few counselors, cold showers and no A/C seems the perfect place for overtaxed minds to unwind and unwire. But why is that?
I looked to Howard Rheingold's Smart Mobs for some insight. I found a section on representation of self and how we obtuse it when we use intermediaries like phones, IM, and SMS. I suggest that we actually alter, slightly, who we are when communicating through these technologies. Alison, the resident Social Working wife reminds me that well over half of communication done is non-verbal and with out face to face interaction we loose valuable context. So by removing gadgets we are actually letting kids be kids.
Comments