When Ronin Segrest, 17, began working at Ocean Oasis Water Park and Beach Club in Wildwood, New Jersey, in the summer of 2025, he'd long been looking forward to becoming a lifeguard. He just didn't anticipate how hard it would be to part ways with his phone for those six-to-seven-hour shifts.
It was "an adjustment," he says. "I was definitely thinking about who was texting me or what I was missing out on."
Morey's Piers, which owns and operates Ocean Oasis Water Park along with various other amusements on the Wildwood Boardwalk, has a strict no-phone policy for its employees during the workday. And with that policy, it joins a growing list of teen employers — along with schools — drawing a hard line against phone use.
Half of teenagers 12-to 17-years-old spend four hours or more on screens every day, according to the latest polling on the subject from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Teens with a higher rate of screen time use outside of school work are more likely to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety, among other negative effects, according to the CDC.
"Teens need two different paradigms" to help them build guardrails around phones, says New York-based psychotherapist Andrew Tepper, who leads retreats for many of his teenage clients where he encourages them to stay off their phones. They need spaces where they're not allowed to use their devices, and spaces where they're free to use them and must self-regulate.
"Both experiences are vital for the development of the adolescent brain," he says.
While the motivations for employers to keep kids off phones might be safety, productivity or skill-building, it turns out the benefits for teens can end up being much deeper.
'You've got a 16-year-old working on a multi-million-dollar piece of equipment'
Denise Beckson, vice president and chief administrative officer at Morey's Piers, has been working at the company since she was 14 years old. "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."
The company hires around 500 14-to 19-year-olds every summer between Memorial Day and Labor Day, she says. They've long had a phone ban for workers, who put their devices in assigned lockers during their shifts.
Ronin Segrest on duty at Ocean Oasis Water Park and Beach Club.
Courtesy of Morey’s Piers
They do so for safety reasons. "You've got a 16-year-old working on a multi-million-dollar piece of equipment," she says, "strapping people in who are going 60 miles an hour upside down." Lifeguards like Segrest also need to keep people safe on water slides and in pools — which they can't do if they're scrolling.
But the phone ban was implemented for performance and skill-building reasons, too. On their downtime, those working at pizza stands need to automatically think "I should be refilling all the condiments," says Beckson. "I could be wiping down the counter. I could be smiling at guests walking by on the boardwalk."
"If I have the phone, the minute there's downtime, that's what I'm doing," she says. "I'm not learning all the downstream steps that I can do that make you more valuable in the workplace."
'It allows us to hyper focus on the task at hand'
The summer camp industry employs more than 1 million staff members each year, including numerous teens and young adults, according to a representative from the American Camp Association. Many camps do not allow staff to use or carry phones while supervising campers.
All-boys sleepaway camp Red Arrow Camp, based in Woodruff, Wisconsin (and where the now-deceased "Saturday Night Live" star Chris Farley was an alum), has always had a no-phone policy for campers. They implemented a phone ban for staff in 2021. This year they had 25 cabin counselors, including 18 and 19-year-olds.
Red Arrow camp co-counselors Dawson Sennes (left) and Danny Sundt (right).
Courtesy Red Arrow Camp
The camp's three main principles are disconnect, discover and develop, says executive director Rich Pruszynski. The goal is to help campers be present, learn new activities and develop skills like teamwork. The phone ban for counselors helps model that behavior, he says.
But for young staffers, that phone ban is also about "being present and being connected," he 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."
'Being on your phone all the time isn't, like, real dopamine'
Young employees are feeling the impact of having their phones taken away.
It took Segrest about a month to get used to not having his phone, but after he did, he noticed some discernable differences. Not having his phone lets him sit with his thoughts, for example. "I solve problems that never even happened," he says.
It's also made it easier to connect with people, customers or otherwise. "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's found that talking to people makes him much happier than texting or scrolling.
Dawson Sennes, 20, was a camper at Red Arrow Camp from 2018 to 2022 and began 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 — it's certainly a shock," he says.
But he's long gotten used to summers without his phone, and the benefits are visceral. "At camp, you experience a very wide spectrum of emotions," Sennes says, "lots of highs, lots of lows." Cabin counselors are constantly managing the emotions of the kids they're responsible for.
At home and in school, it's much easier to distract himself with a screen and ignore what he's feeling, adds Sennes. "But when you're here, you have to deal with your emotions. You have to sit with them."
At camp, he adds: "I definitely feel more alive."
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