Trackers is Our Name

Many folks look at Trackers and see a skills program—offering camps where kids learn archery, wilderness survival, fishing, woodworking, and more. Others know us for our fantastical themes—secret agents, elf quests, zombie survival, and so on—sparking imagination in young minds. Still more parents trust us for something simple but profound: getting kids outside playing like it’s the 1980s all over again (cue the Gen X fist pump).

But here’s the thing—Trackers is our name. And tracking is at the heart of everything we do.

Awareness is the First Skill

My first job as a Tracker is to teach awareness. Not awareness of ideas, ideologies, or schools of thought, but awareness of the real world all around us. That includes the spectacular diversity of the more-than-human world—trees, birds, the smell of dry moss before the rain. It also includes people and what they do in this strange, dense society we call the modern world.

One of the clearest changes I’ve noticed over the past 20 years is how differently people Pay Attention.

Yes, I’ve Read The Anxious Generation

I know some people push back against Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, an incredible book about how healthy—or not healthy—smartphones are for kids. I understand that how we frame things can be relative to context, especially regarding how the internet provides more connection to groups who may need it. Nevertheless, I am a fan of the book, and I see real-life alignment with my own observations as an educator.

But I’m not here to weigh in on youth mental health and correlation versus causation. While that’s an important conversation, I instead want to hone in on something more foundational. And something that’s not limited to kids. I’m talking about attention and awareness—our most basic ways of perceiving the world. Where they go, how they’ve been shaped, and what’s currently shaping them now.

This Is About Awareness

Like anything in life, our technology comes with painful trade-offs. Smartphones—and more specifically, the always-on internet connection—co-opt how we Pay Attention. They take our moment-to-moment awareness and redirect it to a device, pulling us out of the subtle, rich world around us.

One thing that’s just… weird? Being out in public and watching it unfold all around you: Toddlers locked into Paw Patrol on an iPad while the real world marches past. Teenagers sitting together but not speaking, each furiously messaging someone somewhere else online. Grandfathers scrolling TikTok while their grandkids play right in front of them—unseen.

And most of the apps they’re on are specifically engineered to co-opt our attention. I’ve seen grown adults of every generation progressively lose the situational awareness they once possessed, not realizing that those moments used to belong to noticing.

Phones Aren’t the Problem. Awareness Hijack Is.

Smartphones and the always-on internet are hyper-engaging by design, co-opting our attention and rewiring how we relate to the world. Most apps are engineered like digital slot machines. They hijack our deep evolutionary instincts for social connection, tribal belonging, and novelty. They distract us, but also they replace the fundamental human experience of noticing the world with a hyper-targeted drip feed of dopamine.

Just like donuts.

Donuts in the Wilderness

Don’t get me wrong. I love donuts. Donuts fill a very specific human craving for sugar and fat—a biological urge we all have from evolving as foragers. Originally, you would get that sweetness fix from berries, and the fat from salmon. But now we have donuts. Sadly, if donuts were all you ever ate, you would not be healthy.

With smartphones, it’s even worse. You don’t just eat the donut, you carry it in your pocket. That donut constantly updates its flavor to match your mood, your algorithm, and your browsing habits.

That’s not food. That’s programming. And here’s what we’ve noticed, not just in kids, but in everyone.

Fewer people look up. Fewer people notice. We’re losing a core human ability to notice real things.

Those once-idle moments, such as waiting in line, walking in the forest, and standing on a street corner, used to be time for our minds to see and sense. And that kind of casual awareness? It’s essential to how we build intuition and common sense.

And it’s not enough to just put down your device. Because the variable reward systems used in many apps (including those designed for kids) are modeled on gambling psychology. They are constantly working to rewire our attention, training our brains away from the present moment. This kind of habituation isn’t just a distraction; it’s conditioning. And breaking the cycle requires an even stronger antidote, one rooted in presence, patience, and wild awareness.

That antidote can be Tracking.

What Is Tracking, Really?

Tracking is not just reading animal footprints. It’s not just traveling through the wilderness. It’s an immersive method for strengthening awareness. It teaches us to see what’s going on around us in the real world. It’s the skill of noticing subtleties, cataloging them, and using patterns to make better decisions:

• Where will the bobcat be hunting this morning?
• What’s my first priority for wilderness survival here?
• Who is the most aware person in this urban plaza?
• What are people telling me, not out loud, but with their body language and habits?

This common-sense skill, tracking the environment with our senses, is our human heritage. But that innate human capacity is being dulled in all of us. By passive screen time and by the chronic redirection of our attention away from the real world and into an artificial one that is optimized to addict us.

So… How Do We Get It Back?

We practice. Like a martial art, tracking can be broken down into hundreds of techniques. But if you want to start strengthening your awareness today, here are four core routines that will set a strong foundation:

Four Ways to Reclaim Your Awareness

Whiskers: Wherever you’re waiting, put your phone in your pocket and take account of all your senses. Let them stretch out as far as they can go. Try to see movement on the edges of your vision instead of focusing in on one thing. Listen for the quietest sound, something far away, or close by, and faint. Smell and taste the air. Feel how your feet contact the ground, heel, toe, and weight shift. Notice which direction the wind is blowing, how it moves across your skin, or rustles nearby leaves. This is how you start tuning back in.

Shifting: Move your body at different speeds. Eat breakfast at half your normal speed. Feel each movement, each bite. Stop just outside a doorway, take account of the space, and then walk in at one-quarter speed. Practice slow. Practice quiet. Notice how the human world responds to how strangely deliberate you’re being. Some people will ignore you, others might look up, curious. Then take that same awareness into the wilder world and notice how animals and birds react. You’ll start to understand which speed belongs to which place.

Secret Camp: Pick a spot. Go there every morning and every evening for at least 20 minutes. Every day… sit. Listen. Watch. Use all your senses (see Whiskers). This is your baseline. This is how you recalibrate. You’re supposed to feel bored by the familiarity. That boredom trains your brain to find the novelty it craves. Not in flashing screens, but in subtle natural shifts. Eventually, you’ll hear the song sparrow alarm call and, soon after, spot the cat stalking through the brush. Or the birds will stop worrying about you altogether, and you’ll find them close enough to eat from your hand.

Counter Tracking: Try to move through an area without being noticed. Not sneaking like a cartoon villain, but watching out for where others’ focus their awareness, both human and animal, so you can evade their visual and auditory attention. Try not to set off alarm signals (such as birds scolding you). Counter Tracking includes not leaving any sign (tracks) of your presence. Blend in. Camouflage. I intentionally dress as boring as possible in public so I often go unnoticed.

Try these techniques for 2–3 days, on your own or with your whole family. If you feel like it, report back. I’d love to hear what you notice.

And we haven’t even gotten into what most people think of as “tracks.” Footprints, markings, disturbances, those are important, but they come after. They’re the next part of the map. Because when you train your mind to look for signs, subtle or obvious, fleeting or persistent, you begin to build a mental map of the world that is layered, rich, and real.

Tracking starts before tracks. Learning to read what’s left behind, what’s just beneath the surface, is what opens the door to deeper perception. When we catalog those signs, store them in memory, and link them to each other, we begin to see the world not just as a landscape… but as maps in maps in maps.

This is where real attention lives. It’s how we step out of the digital fog and back into our senses. It’s how we begin to see what’s really going on around us and find our way back to nature, to each other, and ourselves.

See you in the forest,

Tony Deis
Trackers Earth
Founder & Dad

BONUS – Rangers Game

At Trackers, our Rangers Guild follows the code to Pay Attention. This is a great Rangers game to play anywhere, forest, a restaurant, street. Sitting with your kids, have them close their eyes while you keep yours open. As their “Rangers Guide,” ask them questions about the environment you’re in:

• Where’s the nearest exit?
• How many trees are within ten feet of us?
• What color is the server’s apron?
• Who’s the most aware stranger here?

Then everyone opens their eyes and checks their answers. Take turns. Play slow. This game sharpens awareness by turning the ordinary into something worth noticing. My 9-year-old daughter’s favorite question: “Who would you choose for your Zombie apocalypse team?”