On family beach vacations, text-loving teens stay plugged in

Lounging and texting at Rehoboth Beach, Brandon Hubacher said he'd only put down his phone when taking a dip in the ocean. (Chuck Snyder - Special To The Washington Post)

The digital age has left many families looking for the right balance.

In Rockville, the Hoppmans have strict limits on use of electronics during the school year, but summers come with more freedom. Nicole Hoppman, 43, says her two teenage sons spend a lot of time on Facebook and her 11-year-old likes video games. But when the family set out for Bethany Beach, Del., in mid-June, they forgot their laptop at home. So for four days, they did not go online.

The family took walks in the mornings and evenings. They watched the World Cup together. There was a trip out for breakfast, another for ice cream. They talked more than they might have.

Of her teenage sons in particular, Hoppman said, "I think they definitely would not have done any of that if they could have been on Facebook." Technology, she said, is "changing life, in that people are doing their own thing more and they are focused on whatever electronic device they have."

Elizabeth Walker, 48, says that for her family's trip from Maryland to Florida this week to see relatives, she has allowed her teenagers to bring along their cellphones but ruled against laptops and a special request for Xbox.

"I would like to force them to speak with their cousins and their grandparents," she said, only half-joking.

Under bright blue beach umbrellas in Rehoboth, there were plenty of ideas about technology's place on vacation.

For most of the past decade, the Hubacher family of Fairfax Station has vacationed with the Johnson family of Severna Park. The parents' friendship goes back to the mid-1980s, when three of them worked at the same radio station. At Rehoboth, they like to spend time by the ocean, hit a water park, go out for sushi, play miniature golf. Their sons are the same age; so are their daughters.

Lately, technology is part of the mix. Each teen has a cellphone and an iPod Touch.

That morning, Adam Johnson, 16, had texted a teenage girl in Maryland -- a lot.

Bailey Hubacher, 13, texted a friend who was at the dentist, the beginning of a day when she would send about 100 texts.

Grace Johnson, 13, was saying technology makes vacation better. "It's important," she said.