Ana María and Julia, aged 14 and 15, say they don't miss their phones. The Community of Madrid organises four total disconnection sessions for minors aged 12 to 17 in Alcalá de Henares and Cercedilla.
180 teenagers aged between 12 and 17 participated in July 2026 in the summer camps Airplane Mode organised by the Community of Madrid, where for 10 days they live without phones, social media, or watches. The initiative, which takes place at the El Encín estate (Alcalá de Henares) and the Villa Castora hostel (Cercedilla), aims to break the technological dependency of a generation born into a digitalised environment.
The challenge of total disconnection for the TikTok generation
The participants, born in 2010 and 2011, hand over their devices upon arrival and do not get them back until the end of the camp. The coordinator, Santiago Lara, explains that these young people "have been born into an absolutely digitalised context and know nothing else. What they see is their parents with a phone in hand." Educator Lorena Helguera highlights that in dynamics like the "influencer factory," the kids analyse "advertising, the algorithm, and how everything is manipulated," developing critical thinking that helps them understand the impact of social media.
"The truth is we really don’t need our phones at all," say Ana María and Julia, two participants who confess that the only thing they miss is being able to show photos, but "in the end, you learn to explain yourself well."
Loss of the sense of time is a common consequence. "It is true that I have a sort of lack of control over schedules, I don’t have a watch or anything, and I don’t even know what day it is, but well, everything else is going super well," comments one of the young girls. The monitors play music with speakers and organise physical activities to replace the absence of screens.
Reconnecting with real relationships outside the web
The training programme, promoted by the General Directorate of Youth, shifts the focus towards physical exercise and the rural environment. The teenagers participate in sports like volleyball and live in an environment where personal interaction is the norm. This forced break alters their emotional priorities: many plan to call family members upon returning. Marcos, one of the boys, confesses: "I think I’m going to call my grandmother because she worries a lot about me and I haven’t seen her in a long time."
"I feel like I’m going to make much better use of my time; I think I’ll be on my phone a lot less," admit Inés and Clara, who used to reach for their phones whenever they got bored.
The participants explain that they have discovered activities they had never tried before, like volleyball, and plan to continue practising them at home. "There are loads of things we’ve discovered. For example, I never played volleyball, and here I am playing, and I think it’s really cool," they point out.
A change of habits that goes home
The preventive workshops, led by psychologists and educators, aim for the teenagers to maintain a healthier relationship with technology after the camp. The Minister of Family, Youth and Social Affairs, Ana Dávila, advocates for expanding places to four camps this year: "What they learn, they tell their friends, they tell their siblings, and I think that is also a source of knowledge to pause and think about how much we are using our phones."
For the residents of Alcalá de Henares and Cercedilla, these camps represent an opportunity for educational leisure that also fosters knowledge of the region's natural environment. The next editions are planned for the summer of 2027, with places to be drawn in spring through the Community of Madrid Youth website.
