What Educators Need to Know About Safer Screentime and Tech-free Greentime

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Originally appears in the Fall 2022 issue.

By Kerry Crofton

I had met the visionary founder, Levi Felix, at Wisdom 2.0 in San Francisco the year before where he was composing haiku on an old manual typewriter. Of course, I approached him, and we talked about how many people were so attached to their cell phones. Levi invited me to Camp Grounded ® — “a summer camp for adults” that he was organizing.

Upon arrival at the gate, everyone had to hand in all their devices at the Tech Check. My husband and I looked forward to four off-the-grid days in the forest. But many young digital natives looked very apprehensive. All that open space. 

After a few days being totally tech-free, they were roaring around, whooping with joy, playing Capture the Flag and other analog games. This wasn’t just a good time in the woods; it was therapeutic. Playfulness and the power of nature were strategies to transport campers back to childhood, before they got tech addicted and lived mostly indoors. The approach was to get techies out of the frenzied buzz of the big city to reconnect with each other and themselves, by disconnecting from electronic screens and social media.