Cell phone use at camp is just fine with me

Most camp directors discourage kids from bringing cell phones to camp. If you’re one of them, it’s gonna get harder, not easier, for you to control this situation.

Even worse, your “no cell phones at camp” policy might be pissing off your customers.

Cell phone activity among kids is SKYROCKETING, not just because more and more parents are buying cell phones for their kids, but because cell phone use has become one of the primary ways kids and parents communicate with each other.

Check out some of these findings from the recent Marketing to Mom’s Coalition survey:

• Mobile devices account for the top two ways mothers communicate with their kids under 18
• Moms and their school-age kids on their cell phones over 5 times per week 
• Moms and their school-age kids text each other over 3 times per week

What does this mean for camp directors? Cover your ears if you don’t want to hear this, but many kids and parents already despise your policy of not letting them speak to each other while the kid’s at camp.

And you’re also contending with powerful marketing companies whose sole mission is to sell products and services designed to bring people closer together, not apart.

So, why fight it?

I’ll bet you can even find ways to incorporate cell phone use or text message time into the camp day. That’s what we’re doing at Aloha Beach Camp, anyway.

Even though we’ll still recommend kids leave their cell phones home, we’re not naive enough to think they won’t bring them anyway. But if our families have the urge to communicate with each other, we won’t stand in their way.

Will you?