FOCUS: TEENS WITHOUT TECHNOLOGY
Boy Scouts leave their electronic devices behind to learn low-tech skills
Campers at Scouthaven in Cattaraugus County learn to tune in to the natural world
At Camp Scouthaven earlier this month, a group of Boy Scouts learned how to carry a canoe overland between two bodies of water, how to filter water for drinking and other crucial camping skills.
When the teens weren’t listening intently to their instructors, talk and laughter filled the air.
But what’s most notable is what the Scouts weren’t doing. They weren’t text-messaging. They weren’t listening to MP3 players. They weren’t playing video games.
“You think about [the technology left at home] sometimes, but you’re doing things that are better than that,” said Dave Ganser, 16, a member of Troop 616 from Cheektowaga, who was training for the upcoming “Birchbark Expeditions Water Shakedown” in Canada.
The technology-free scene at Camp Scouthaven in the Cattaraugus County town of Freedom is unusual because young people today have a deep-rooted connection to their electronic devices.
The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and campsites are engaged in a fierce fight for the hearts of tech-savvy young people.
“There’s really a lot of adventure, if they’re willing to leave the things behind,” said Lynn LeFeber, supervisor for recreational and educational programs at Allegany State Park.
New technology is altering the traditional camping experience, and some of the changes are positive, Scout leaders said.
Scouts and adults can use global positioning system devices in orienteering, for example, or the treasure-seeking game known as “geocaching.”
But it’s hard for campers to completely throw themselves into nature if they are using a hand-held video game player, talking on a cell phone or listening to music on headphones.
“You’re not going to hear the birds chirping. You’re not going to hear the frogs croaking at night,” said Jennifer Schubert, executive director of Camp Weona, the YMCA’s sleepover camp in Wyoming County.
To limit distractions, some organizations are tightening their policies on electronic devices.
“What we’ve found is that, once they get past that, that they enjoy their experience at camp. It’s kind of like being unplugged,” said Cindy L. Odom, chief executive officer of the Girl Scouts of Western New York, which this year set a formalized policy banning cell phones and digital cameras on camp outs.
The Boy and Girl Scouts have been around a long time, but the competition for the attention and the time of young people has gotten more intense in recent years, officials said.
Kids and teens can sign up for sports teams, dance lessons and many other activities — in addition to all of the technology they live with, said Patrick M. Coviello, executive director of the Boy Scouts’ Greater Niagara Frontier Council.
“It’s tougher for us to recruit kids today to begin with, and I think to a great extent it’s because of all these diversions that are out there,” he said.
Today, campers heading to Scouthaven or the Girl Scouts’ Camp Seven Hills in Holland for a week have to leave behind their cell phones, text-messaging, Internet, Instant Messaging, e-mail, MP3 players, video games, DVD players and the hundreds of channels on cable.
This can be hard for young people who feel a strong bond to their extensive menu of media options and a constant connection, through cell phones and the Internet, to their friends.
Coviello recently went on a trip to Washington, D. C., with his 8-year-old son’s Cub Scout pack of 40 youngsters.
“I don’t think there was a one of them that didn’t have a Nintendo DS or a Game Boy,” Coviello said.
The adults on the trip wouldn’t let the boys play their hand-held game consoles while they were sightseeing, but the devices kept them occupied on the trip’s long bus rides, he said.
Cradle Beach Camp, which serves disabled and disadvantaged children and teens, doesn’t let campers bring electronic devices to camp, said Tim Boling, chief executive officer.
“We want them to experience the outdoors and do crafts. We don’t want them to sit by a tree and listen to their iPod. They can do that at home,” he said.
Leaders at the YMCA’s Camp Weona ban electronic devices and will confiscate them if they see them, Schubert said.
Boy Scouts and members of Venturing, a Scout-related organization for boys and girls ages 14 to 20, said they do miss their devices when they go camping.
“Everyone knows the exact point when they stop getting service on their cell phones,” said Katrina Overbeck, 16, a Niagara Falls resident and member of Venture Crew 849 who was at Scouthaven preparing for the Birchbark Expeditions.
The Scouts interviewed at Scouthaven said they’d left their devices at home for the day, but many said they knew fellow Scouts who had tried to sneak devices on longer camp outs.
“One time the Scoutmasters found a Game Boy in one of the Scout’s tents. They put it in a plastic bag and hung it on the flagpole. That kid wasn’t too happy,” said Paul Volo, 14, a member of Scout Troop 285.
Not every device is an undesirable distraction, and the relationship between young people and their technology isn’t necessarily bad, said Suzanne Miller, chairwoman of the department of learning and instruction in the University at Buffalo’s Graduate School of Education.
“I think they’re not so much into the things. They’re into the connectedness and the networking and the socialness of it,” Miller said. “They are living and experiencing the world in a different way than we ever did.”
LeFeber, the Allegany State Park staffer, sees campers taking photos with their digital cameras and cell phones and downloading the images onto laptop computers, where they can be posted to Web sites and shared with friends.
“In some sense, technology can also be used to connect you to the environment,” said Jeffrey
J. McConnell, chairman of Canisius College’s computer science department.
The Girl Scouts’ policy of no cell phones and cameras on camp outs was in place last year, but not really enforced, said Janet DePetrillo, director of outdoor programs for the Girl Scouts of Buffalo and Erie County.
This year, it’s in writing and parents must sign off on it.
Damian D’Arcy of Troop 285 was one of the Scouts training at Scouthaven, and he managed to have fun while going most of a recent Saturday without any electronic devices.
The 14-year-old from Orchard Park thinks other teens could do it, too.
“If a lot of them tried this, they might actually like it.”
swatson@buffnews.com and bhayden@buffnews.com
