Shocker: Teens Put Down Their Phones For Summer Camp, Mental Health Improves

For two to three-and-a-half weeks, teenagers at a Maine summer camp traded their devices for outdoor activities and face-to-face friendships. By the end, their mental health had improved – with the largest gains among those who arrived struggling.

The findings add to research suggesting that relief from constant connectivity can produce benefits surprisingly quickly. They also raise a question – How much of it depends on what replaces the screen?

The study, published in Mental Health & Prevention, assessed 192 adolescents attending a device-free residential camp. Researchers included scientists from Sapien Labs and UC San Diego.

Participants’ composite mental-health scores improved by an average of 10.1 points between arrival and departure. Those starting with mental-health struggles recorded a median improvement of 27 points. These are changes on the study’s questionnaire scale, not percentage improvements or evidence that a psychiatric condition was cured.

The strongest gains involved adaptability and resilience. Campers also reported better focus and less worry and restlessness. Forty-four percent said they felt a stronger sense of belonging at camp than at school; 40% found making friends easier.

A session cost $4,900 to $7,900. Fewer than one in 10 campers arrived in the study’s distressed or struggling range, against more than half of US teens on the same measure, and nearly a quarter saw their scores fall by more than five points. Sapien notes that there was no control group – so we can’t know for sure whether removing devices caused the improvement, vs. how much came from exercise, sleep, friendship and the broader camp experience. 

That said, there’s been similar research…

A 2024 Danish study in JAMA Network Open randomly assigned 89 families, including 181 children and adolescents, either to reduce recreational screen use or continue their usual habits. For two weeks, the intervention families handed over smartphones and tablets and were instructed to limit leisure screen use to three hours per week per person. Basic phones preserved calls and texting.

Children in those families showed greater improvement in behavioral difficulties, particularly emotional symptoms and peer problems, alongside better prosocial behavior. The overall effect was moderate by conventional statistical standards.

This provides stronger evidence that changing screen habits can help. Still, the children averaged roughly nine years old, parents knew which group they were in and supplied the behavioral ratings, and the experiment did not establish whether the benefits were lasting.

In a 2014 study led by UCLA researchers, 51 sixth-graders spent five days at an outdoor camp without screens. Compared with 54 schoolmates who continued their normal routines, campers improved more at recognizing emotions from facial expressions and other nonverbal cues. That measured a social skill, rather than depression or anxiety. The groups were not randomly assigned, and outdoor activities and greater personal interaction accompanied the screen break. Nevertheless, the finding suggests that even a brief change in daily habits can affect how children read other people.

A 2025 randomized trial in PNAS Nexus enrolled 467 people in an experiment blocking internet access on their smartphones for two weeks. Calls, texts and internet access through other devices remained available. Researchers found improvements in mental health, wellbeing and objectively tested sustained attention. Participants reported spending more time socializing in person, exercising and being outdoors. Just 119 participants met the prespecified compliance threshold of keeping the block active for at least 10 days. The average participant was 32, so these results cannot simply be transferred to teenagers.

There is also emerging evidence from the Maine camp itself. A September 2026 preprint examined brain-wave recordings from 30 campers and reported changes associated with some improvements in wellbeing. However, it was a small, uncontrolled pilot, had not been peer-reviewed, and came from the same broader camp project. Meanwhile, a 2025 SMART Schools study compared 1,227 adolescents across 30 English schools. Students at schools with restrictive phone policies used phones less during school, but did not report better mental wellbeing. Their overall weekday and weekend phone use was not significantly different.

Maine campers who said they exercised more at camp gained 17.4 points on average, against 4.8 for those who exercised less. Those who felt a stronger sense of belonging gained 15 points, against 5.8 for those whose sense of belonging fell. None of those gaps reached statistical significance, and the scores were taken on the last day of camp, so whether the gains lasted after campers went home is unknown.