{"id":356695,"date":"2026-09-25T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/?p=356695"},"modified":"2026-09-14T11:40:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T15:40:47","slug":"do-students-prefer-to-go-phone-free-over-the-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/2026\/09\/25\/do-students-prefer-to-go-phone-free-over-the-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Students Prefer to Go Phone-Free Over the Summer?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Eleanor Ganz enjoys her summer phone-free.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As students leave the Pace Academy campus for the summer and head in different directions, they begin their own summer journeys. Over these next two months, students may hold jobs, attend camps, go on family vacations, participate in an ICGL trip or branch out to do something else that drives them. Two endeavors Pace students commonly pursue are working at and attending camps and summer vacation programs. Depending on the program or camp, a lot of these summer experiences have some sort of cellphone policy. Some may be all for cellphone usage, while others strictly prohibit it. Students have grown accustomed to these various phone policies, and some enjoy being phone-free, while other student voices shared that they think their phone is a valuable resource over the summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Eleanor Ganz spent her summer at Camp Thunderbird, where she has been going for the past few years. This summer Eleanor served as a CIT, and therefore had many more responsibilities than in previous years. While some CIT programs allow for phone usage, Thunderbird does not. \u201cI enjoyed not having my phone because I connected so much more with the people around me than I would have if I were staring at my phone,\u201d said Eleanor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Senior Graham Smith also spent his summer away from his phone and found it a lot more difficult than he expected. Graham participated in a month-long backpacking trip that required not having his phone with him, and although he was ultimately glad that it wasn’t there, he still had a tough time adjusting. \u201cAt the beginning of the trip, I constantly wanted to talk to my friends or look at social media,\u201d added Graham. By the end of his backpacking experience, Graham recognized that not having his phone strengthened the trip, since he did not have to worry about what was happening on his phone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Emma Alvarez spent some time this summer in England, participating in a pre-college program at Oxford where she found it essential to have her phone on her. \u201cI enjoyed having my phone this summer to take fun pictures and document all the cool places I visited,\u201d shared Emma. Emma also added that having her phone was important to her when she was so far away from friends and family, so that she could keep in touch no matter the distance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, whether students thrived phone-free or leaned on their devices seemed to depend less on the policy itself and more on what the experience called for. Whether it was searching for a deeper connection with those nearby or staying connected to those far away, phone policies continued to dictate the summers of Pace Students. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As students leave the Pace Academy campus for the summer and head in different directions, they begin their own summer journeys. Over these next two months, students may hold jobs, attend camps, go on family vacations, participate in an ICGL trip or branch out to do something else that drivesContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":508,"featured_media":356696,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["entry","author-madeleine-ganz27paceacademy-org","post-356695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-whatsyourtake"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/files\/2026\/09\/IMG_0306.jpeg?fit=1179%2C1356&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1TYqQ-1uN9","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/508"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":356697,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356695\/revisions\/356697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/knightlife.paceacademy.org\/knightlynews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}