Offline.now is a community helping people build a healthier relationship with screens - without shame or all-or-nothing rules. We turn intention into action with small wins, a simple framework (the Offline.now Matrix) and practical tools anyone can use at home, at work, or in the classroom.

We host a growing directory of therapists, coaches, and others who specialize in digital wellbeing, attention, and family tech dynamics. Whether you’re a parent, professional, student, or practitioner, we meet you where you are and help you design tech use that supports sleep, focus, and relationships.

For media, we provide expert voices, timely insights on doomscrolling and phone overuse, and real-world stories from our community.

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Have Overnight Summer Camps Become Too Materialistic?

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The Benefits of Summer Camp (Article 1)

As a professional coach I draw upon my life experiences working with parents, children and young adult staff through my 25 years of owning and operating Camp Manitou, an overnight summer camp whose mandate was to remove children from the digital world and allow them to flourish in a setting of the outdoors, with nature where cell phones and social media were not permitted.

Prior to this, I worked for 14 years in three other vocations. I received my law degree from Osgoode Hall and realized very quickly this career was not aligned with my strengths and values. I then ran a small real estate development company and then became the CEO of Canada’s first web site development company. I then felt it was time at age 39 to pursue my dream career of running and operating Camp Manitou.

This career was the best decision of my life. As someone who has experienced four different careers, I understand the value of having the courage to make changes in one’s life to follow your dream and obtain fulfillment. In addition, through my first-hand experience as a parent myself, and through owning and co-directing Camp Manitou for 25 years, I have gained extensive experience and wisdom in the areas of the affect of social media on children, teens, and young adults. The impact it has had on child-rearing, and the family challenges that can result , along the affect on one’s the mental health.

My coaching practise has a focus on developing strategies for individuals, families, parents and children to detox from the digital world while learning how to minimize the demands that arise from instant communication in our daily lives. This in turns allows for healthy relationships, positive growth and ultimate happiness.

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Offline.now expert Mark Diamond says the fastest way to reset a screen-soaked brain isn’t a “digital detox.”

Certified Professional Coach

When people feel burned out from their phones, the default solution is often a “digital detox”: delete the apps for a week, set a screen-time limit, maybe move social icons off the home screen. Then work, group chats and FOMO pull them right back in.

Personal Development Coach Mark Diamond, an expert in the Offline.now directory who ran a tech-free summer camp for 25 years, says the real reset button isn’t a slightly less frantic version of the same life. It’s 48 hours of real-world experience outdoors.

“I’ve watched kids and adults go from wired and anxious to relaxed and connected in a matter of days — not because we lectured them about screens, but because they were hiking, cooking over a fire, laughing with friends, actually living,” Diamond says. “Nature gives your nervous system something it can’t get from a feed.”  The science backs up what he sees at camp. A large meta-analysis of nature exposure in adults found that as little as 10 minutes in natural settings improves markers of mental health — including mood and stress — with larger benefits for longer doses of time outside.

A broad review on nature and health reports that regular contact with green and blue spaces is associated with:

Better mental health and reduced stress Improved cognitive function and attention Higher levels of physical activity Better sleep quality  Experimental work using brain imaging has also shown that short visits to green spaces can boost positive affect and change patterns of brain activation in ways consistent with reduced rumination and improved emotional regulation, the opposite of what many people experience after long periods of doomscrolling.

Diamond’s camp experience maps directly onto these findings: after even a weekend of tech-free outdoor time, he sees kids and adults become more patient, more playful and more able to tolerate “boredom”: a key ingredient for real focus and creativity.

Offline.now integrates this into its digital balance approach by treating offline, outdoor experiences as a core intervention, not a reward you earn after perfect screen behavior. Instead of asking, “How can I use my phone less?” the question becomes, “What can I do offline that naturally displaces my screen time?”

“You don’t have to move to the woods,” Diamond says. “Two days of walks, parks, backyard projects, or local trails can do more for your brain than seven days of white-knuckling your way through a ‘detox’ while you stay indoors thinking about your phone.”  For journalists covering digital wellness, mental health, or lifestyle resets, this story connects the dots between nature research, digital fatigue, and why a simple 48-hour outdoor reset might be more realistic and more powerful than yet another all-or-nothing break from apps.

Featured Expert Mark Diamond – Personal Development Coach and longtime director of a tech-free outdoor camp. He specializes in outdoor wellness, sustainable behavior change, and helping families and individuals swap abstract “detox” goals for concrete, nature-based experiences that restore mood, focus and connection.   Expert interviews can be arranged through the Offline.now media team.


Why 48 Hours Outdoors Does More Than a Week of Scrolling Breaks

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Offline.now experts say the week before school resumes is the perfect time to reset kids’ sleep, focus and screen habits starting with what parents model.

Executive Function Coach, Speech-Language Pathologist, and Educational Specialist

As kids head back to school after the holidays, many parents notice the same pattern: bedtimes drifted, screens crept into bedrooms, and mornings feel like a battle. 

Executive Function Coach Craig Selinger and Personal Development Coach Mark Diamond, both experts in the Offline.now directory, say the answer is yes; but only if families treat the last week of break as a “tech reset,” not just a scramble for school supplies.

Selinger points out that today’s devices are structurally different from the TV many parents grew up with:

“Phones and tablets are more addicting than the old living-room TV. There’s no natural ending — no episode, no credits, no ‘we’re done now.’ When the ‘TV’ lives in your child’s pocket, transitions to homework or sleep become a lot harder.”   That matters because late-night screen habits have real consequences in the classroom. Reviews of adolescent media use consistently link bedtime and late-evening screen time with shorter sleep, poorer sleep quality, and worse next-day functioning; including attention, memory and mood that kids need to learn.

On top of that, education and cognition research shows that media multitasking: juggling schoolwork with notifications, chats, and apps is associated with reduced sustained attention and weaker academic performance.

Diamond, who ran a tech-free summer camp for 25 years, has seen how quickly kids’ brains and behavior respond when screens are dialed down and real-world activity is dialed up:

“At camp, we watched kids go from anxious and distracted to confident and connected in a matter of days — without phones. Outdoor play, hands-on projects, chores, even just walking and talking with friends reset their mood and focus in a way no app can.”  “Micro-routines make a macro difference,” says Diamond. “If you reclaim just an hour a day from screens for real-world activity, most kids feel the change in their bodies and brains within a week.”   Selinger adds that the reset only sticks when adults go first: “You can’t tell a teen to stop scrolling at 11 p.m. while you’re answering work email in bed. Kids are watching how we transition off our own screens. If parents lead by example, the new school rules stop feeling like punishment and start feeling like the new normal.”  For journalists covering back-to-school, kids’ mental health, learning and technology, this story connects the dots between holiday screen creep, sleep, attention, and how a simple, family-led “tech reset week” can set kids up to actually learn once they’re back in class.

Featured Experts Craig Selinger, M.S., CCC-SLP – Executive Function Coach and child development specialist (Brooklyn Letters). He focuses on how kids actually learn, and how digital dependency, sleep loss and multitasking erode attention and academic skills.  Mark Diamond – Personal Development Coach and former director of a tech-free summer camp. He specializes in outdoor wellness, behavior change, and helping families translate “camp magic” into everyday routines at home.   Expert interviews can be arranged through the Offline.now media team.




Can You Reboot Your Family’s Screen Rules Before Going Back to School?

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Tech-free summer camp founder Mark Diamond explains how one small outdoor ritual can reset a family’s relationship with screens over the holidays.

For many families, Thanksgiving weekend has quietly become a four-day screen marathon: football, streaming, shopping, scrolling through sales, and group chats buzzing in the background.

Personal development coach Mark Diamond has spent decades seeing what happens when people take a different approach.

After running a tech-free camp for 25 years, he’s watched kids and adults transform when phones disappear and the outdoors becomes the main event. 

“You can actually feel nervous systems reset,” he says. “People sleep better, they laugh more, and they have the kinds of conversations that just don’t happen when everyone’s half-present on their devices.”  Diamond believes Thanksgiving is one of the easiest times of year to test what he’s learned - without asking anyone to give up the game or the parade.

“You don’t have to cancel screens,” he says. “You just have to make sure they’re not the only thing you remember about the weekend.”  He suggests families experiment with one simple offline tradition they can repeat every year:
Everyone helps with the meal - put on some good music and  try to learn to cook! Hear family stories - instead of talking about trending videos, have some  questions ready to learn about the lives of relatives you don't see so often. A tech-free walk before or after dinner - leave phones at home or in pockets on airplane mode. An outdoor game (even in colder weather) - touch football, a scavenger hunt for younger kids, or a quick “around the block” relay. A “no scroll, just snap” rule - photos are fine, but posting and scrolling wait until the next day.  When people are already together, Diamond notes, it’s actually easier to introduce new traditions. “You can say, ‘This year, let’s try 30 minutes of no screens while we do X.’ It feels like a shared experiment, not a punishment.”

The real payoff, he says, isn’t just fewer hours online. It’s the memories and inside jokes that come from doing something real together, not just watching the same screen side by side.

“We’re not going to remember every highlight reel or Black Friday deal,” Diamond says. “We remember the time we got caught in the rain on a walk, or when somebody’s throw went wildly off course and everyone burst out laughing.”  In his coaching work, Diamond helps people who feel “glued to their phones” design lives where brief, meaningful offline moments are built in — starting with accessible opportunities like holiday weekends.

“Thanksgiving is a perfect low-stakes test. If one tiny offline tradition makes the day feel better, that’s powerful feedback. You can carry that forward into December, and into the new year.”  About the Expert Mark Diamond is a personal development coach and founder of a long-running tech-free camp. He focuses on outdoor wellness, sustainable behavior change, and helping people reconnect to happiness and real-world experiences in an age of constant screens. Mark is part of the Offline.now expert directory, contributing to the community supporting better parental modelling for device use. 

Want a Better Thanksgiving? Start With a Screen Break

I created the first and only overnight camp & speaker series at camp where the campers are totally immersed in learning about giving back to those less fortunate, with charitable initiatives the campers work on during the summer and guest speakers weekly to teach the children how they can make a positive difference in the world.

Camp Manitou Speaker Series Fireside: How to Speak Up and Make Real Change

Presented at local Toronto private schools.

On Parenting and why summer camp now is more important than ever

Tonight we must come together as a camp community to educate ourselves about racism, prejudice and the Black experience in Canada and around the world. We all need to learn to create real change, take responsibility and commit to addressing these systemic issues as Manitou family.

We are proud to hear from Orlando Bowen, Jama Mahlalela, Dr. Chika Stacy Oriuwa and Anthony Maclean.

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