By Maggie Downs
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Call it the modern version of roughing it.

Kids at sleepaway summer camp - far from the comforts of cell phones, televisions, video games and the Web.

"I hear more requests to check e-mail or to use the Internet than ever before," said Matt Schneider, 24, of Boone County, a camp program director.

At the sleepaway camp where Schneider works - YMCA Camp Ernst in Burlington - the youth are unwired, unplugged and disconnected from their normal life during their week or two there.

In the woods, instant messaging is nonexistent. GameBoys are frowned upon. Telephone use - even landline - is strongly discouraged.

Instead, the children (ages 6 to 15) are inundated with low-tech fun, such as swimming and sing-alongs, horseback riding and rock climbing. For some, this lifestyle can seem just plain weird. Like when they're forced to use snail mail.

"We write some letters home," said Annie Rosenthal, 13, of Mount Lookout. "I think it's fun. It's different."

"It's just a much slower way of communication," said Ted Schneider, 11, of Wyoming.

There are almost 10,000 children's summer camps in the United States and more than 6 million children attend them each summer, according to the National Camp Association. While specialty camps often embrace technology - even focus on it, for computer-building skills, for example - peruse most sleepaway camps' list of activities and you won't find video or Web games among the offerings.

At Lake of the Woods Camp in Decatur, Mich., for example, the girls activity roster lists 45 cool things to do - and computers are placed far below wind surfing, tennis and drama.

Increasingly, camps are banning pagers and PDAs.

At Camp Ernst, "It's a little bubble of good, clean fun," Schneider said. "We're trying to encourage socialization between the kids - not communication between one computer and another."

"This is something completely different for them," said counselor John Aerni, 23, of Oakley. At her Fort Thomas home, camper Alexa Lowe, 12, typically spends her free time playing computer games or watching TV. But now, she's been enjoying the back-to-basics camp routine - participating in capture-the-flag games, scavenger hunts and hayrides - with her newfound friends.

"It's not like you're not busy here," she said. "You can't sit down and say, 'I'm bored.' "

It helps that the campers are surrounded by their peers.

"At home, there's not always someone to hang out with," Lowe said. "Here you never run out of people to talk to."

The phone is perhaps the toughest thing to wean children from these days, said the camp counselors. It's particularly difficult when these contemporary kids suffer from an age-old affliction - missing mom and dad.

"Sometimes not being able to use the phone is a big cause of anxiety for the children who are homesick," Schneider said. "But we still discourage it.

"This is supposed to be their break from the real world."

Lonely parents can still communicate with their little campers - they can e-mail the camp office.

E-mail mdowns@enquirer.com