Life Without Technology

As I was in the midst of preparing for The Project, I came across two very similar 'news' stories that really got me thinking...

The first story I read on my Yahoo news...they now have a TEXTING championship. I imagine it to be somewhat like a spelling bee, since I believe there were rounds and everything, only it is whoever can text a certain message the fastest without any errors and using all those stupid codes correctly. The winner, I believe, was a 14 year old girl.
The second story caught my attention while Rachel Ray was on TV in the background. She had all kids who were really good at certain things on her show. One of the girls she had on was a 14 year old girl who held the record for sending the most text messages in a year...or some amount of time. It averaged to something like 400 texts a day or something really crazy like that.

These two stories and a very deep conversation I had the other day... had me thinking in amazement of the environment that I live in all summer at camp. We (students and staff) live practically technology-free all summer. We have no TVs and for the most part no computers, internet, or cell phones. The students don't have their cell phones glued to their hand...they don't even have them in their possession, and the staff isn't constantly checking their facebook every 10 minutes.
I am the first person to admit that i am addicted to being on my computer and on the internet and connected to the world in that way, however, I 100% look forward to being disconnected for the summer. I love not having internet for weeks at a time, not having time to check my cell phone til extremely late at night, and not killing my brain cells with the crap that's on TV.

All of that being said...what you discover at this particular camp is that the product of life without technology is...people creating the most amazing bonds with other people because they talk to each other...in person. The students play games together, discover new things they are good at, step out of their comfort zone to meet new people, and have real heartfelt conversations.

I digress...you truly have to see it happen, it amazes me, and I love it. Disconnected in T-minus 6 days!