"Parents right now are conditioned to really worry if their kids are having fun and if they're happy - which is absurd, because they send them to these amazing camps where they're practically guaranteed to have fun," she said. "This idea where you have to be happy all the time: That's not real, and yet that's what we're chasing and what we're looking for when we want all these pictures all the time."

Kate Lemay, the executive director of the YMCA of Greater Boston Overnight Camps, which runs three boys' and girls' camps in New Hampshire, said she appreciates that the photos can help give parents a sense of trust in where their kids are staying. She worked with Bunk1 to help develop a Web seminar for parents to help them "manage expectations" and deal with anxiety around the experience, including how many photos they'd see. Counselors, she said, also often help kids learn to deal with homesickness and other "instantaneous emotions" that often lead them to reach for their cellphone.

But still, she struggles over how much access to their kids is too much. "As much as it is a reassuring platform, some days I wonder if this is something we should be doing, or if it's making it worse," she said.

"There's the contradiction of these really old-fashioned summer camps with no electricity in the cabins, no cellphones . . . but the parents can check in daily to look at the expressions on their kids' faces," she added. "Part of childhood development is: It isn't always 100 percent smiling."