When Ronin Segrest, 17, signed on as a lifeguard at Ocean Oasis Water Park and Beach Club in Wildwood, New Jersey, last summer, he was eager to start. What he didn’t foresee was how difficult it would be to leave his phone behind for shifts lasting six to seven hours. “It was an adjustment,” he says. “I was definitely thinking about who was texting me or what I was missing out on.”
When Ronin Segrest, 17, signed on as a lifeguard at Ocean Oasis Water Park and Beach Club in Wildwood, New Jersey, last summer, he was eager to start. What he didn’t foresee was how difficult it would be to leave his phone behind for shifts lasting six to seven hours. “It was an adjustment,” he says. “I was definitely thinking about who was texting me or what I was missing out on.”
Ocean Oasis is owned and operated by Morey’s Piers, which also runs other attractions along the Wildwood Boardwalk. The company maintains a strict no phone policy for employees during their shifts, joining a growing list of teen employers and schools that have drawn a hard line against device use.
According to the latest polling from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, half of teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 spend four or more hours on screens every day. The CDC also reports that teens who use screens at higher rates outside of schoolwork are more likely to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, along with other negative effects.
Andrew Tepper, a psychotherapist in New York, says teens need two different environments when it comes to phones: places where they aren’t allowed to use them and places where they are free to use them and must learn to regulate their own behavior. “Both experiences are vital for the development of the adolescent brain,” he says.
Denise Beckson, vice president and chief administrative officer at Morey’s Piers, has worked at the company since she was 14. “The first job I had here was in the water park,” she says, “and I would cut wristbands as people were leaving the park for the day.” Morey’s hires about 500 workers aged 14 to 19 each summer between Memorial Day and Labor Day, according to Beckson. The phone ban has been in place for years, with employees stashing their devices in assigned lockers during shifts.
Safety is one of the main reasons behind the policy. “You’ve got a 16-year-old working on a multi-million-dollar piece of equipment,” Beckson says, “strapping people in who are going 60 miles an hour upside down.” Lifeguards like Segrest also need to keep swimmers and slide users safe, something they can’t do if their attention is on a screen.
The rule is also about performance and skill building. When things are slow, employees at pizza stands should automatically be thinking “I should be refilling all the condiments,” Beckson says. “I could be wiping down the counter. I could be smiling at guests walking by on the boardwalk.” She adds, “If I have the phone, the minute there’s downtime, that’s what I’m doing. I’m not learning all the downstream steps that I can do that make you more valuable in the workplace.”
The summer camp industry is also part of this trend. More than 1 million staff members, including numerous teens and young adults, work at camps each year, according to a representative of the American Camp Association. Many camps prohibit staff from carrying or using phones while they’re supervising campers.
Red Arrow Camp, a sleepaway camp for boys in Woodruff, Wisconsin, where the late Saturday Night Live star Chris Farley was once a camper, has always had a no phone policy for campers. The camp extended that policy to staff in 2021. This year, the camp had 25 cabin counselors, including counselors aged 18 and 19. Executive director Rich Pruszynski says the camp’s three main principles are disconnect, discover and develop. The goal is to help campers be present, learn new activities and build skills like teamwork, and the staff phone ban helps model that behavior.
For young staff members, the ban is also about “being present and being connected,” Pruszynski says. “It allows us to hyper focus on the task at hand. We don’t have that thing in our pocket dinging or ringing or buzzing and distracting.”
Segrest says it took about a month to get used to the new routine. Once he did, he noticed differences. Not having his phone allowed him to sit with his thoughts, he says. “I solve problems that never even happened.” It also made it easier to connect with people. “The biggest thing it’s made me realize is that being on your phone all the time isn’t, like, real dopamine,” he says. He adds that talking to people brings him much more happiness than texting or scrolling.
Dawson Sennes, 20, attended Red Arrow Camp as a camper from 2018 to 2022 and started working as a cabin counselor at 19. He first experienced the phone ban as a teen camper. “The lack of connection to the outside world was a shock,” he says. But he has long since grown used to summers without his phone, and says the benefits go beyond surface level. “At camp, you experience a very wide spectrum of emotions,” he says, “lots of highs, lots of lows.” Cabin counselors are constantly managing the emotions of the kids they look after.
At home or at school, Sennes says, it’s easy to distract himself with a screen and ignore what he’s feeling. “But when you’re here, you have to deal with your emotions. You have to sit with them.” He adds: “I definitely feel more alive.”
For many young workers, being required to put down their phones during a summer job is turning out to be more than a rule. It’s an opportunity to develop focus, self awareness and genuine connection, skills that could serve them long after the season ends.
For many young workers, being required to put down their phones during a summer job is turning out to be more than a rule. It’s an opportunity to develop focus, self awareness and genuine connection, skills that could serve them long after the season ends.
