For those who don’t know, CLTC is one of BBYO’s leadership camps. Unlike a regular sleepaway camp, teens get to keep their phones for the whole session. In this day in age, most teenagers are always connected to their phones via social media. 

Teens don’t get wifi access and have to rely fully on cell service. We as a group have discovered that the big rock outside of BBG bunk 4 tends to have very good cell service. We refer to it as the “WiFi rock”. The WiFi rock represented our lack of connection to the outside world so far. 

While we were on the rock trying to get service, we didn’t yet realize that the conversations we had while waiting were more memorable than the TikTok we would see when we were connected. The lesson we learned is that being more disconnected from the outside world meant that we got to be more connected to each other. 

Everyone back at home sits on their phones all day long but that is not the point of camp and BBYO. Here at CLTC one thing we all learn is that we can live without technology and it is refreshing to be able to talk to people face to face. In the end, we only have 12 days together. It is such a waste to spend those days doomscrolling or doing something else that we can just do daily at home. 

Don't get us wrong, it’s nice to have phones for a nighttime scroll or to take endless pictures, but the best way to do it is to put down devices and live in the moment. Phones should be used to capture moments NOT to take them away.