Mark Patinkin with sons Zach and Alex on the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire.

There seems to be a new syndrome out there.

The National Wildlife Federation has announced most Americans suffer from “nature deficit disorder.” That’s their way of saying people don’t camp enough. Children now spend an average 44 hours a week staring at electronic screens and that, says the NWF, can result in “a weaker immune system, Attention Deficit Disorder, lost creativity and lack of self-sufficiency.”

Who knew?

As a result, the NWF has launched a push to get Americans taking trips in tents, with a Web site telling you how at www.backyardcampout.org.

Taking the term “backyard” literally, I was relieved to think I could cure my kids of ADD by setting up a pop-up tent within extension-cord range. On closer reading, I saw that “backyard” is a figurative reference to America’s wilderness. Oh.

I have made an effort to camp once every few years with my family, by which I mean my sons. My wife and daughter opt instead to shop in outlets and watch movies with names like The Love Letter, which I don’t think meets the NWF’s standards. Then again, I have a wealthy friend whose wife considers it camping if they are staying in anything less than a Four Seasons. “Honey,” she said to him not long ago, “we’re at a Marriott. I love to camp.”

One of my early memories is my father bringing us to a campsite on Red Fish Lake in Idaho for a week. With gasoline at about 25 cents a gallon, we drove across country to get there, of course in a wood-paneled station wagon. During long stretches, my mother made us sing “Waltzing Matilda.” I tried to resurrect this tradition the first time I drove my kids to New Hampshire to camp, but they insisted instead on lyrics from Jay-Z. I am not sure how society got from “Waltzing Matilda” to “Big Pimpin’.”

My main memory of that trip is dropping my beloved Swiss Army Knife down into the outhouse. In desperation, I asked my dad to lower me by my ankles so I could get it back. For some reason, he refused. Fathers can be so unreasonable.

I recall my brother, Douglas, going off as a teenager to camp with friends and discovering that the food you eat in the wild tastes terrific, perhaps because expectations are so low. He came home insisting my mom duplicate his favorite entrée by making a family dinner of hot dogs wrapped in grilled Spam. Afterward, even Douglas acknowledged that without a campfire in front of it, Spam and dogs don’t work out. In family lore, that meal ranks second in awfulness to the dreaded salmon loaf incident of 1969, which I’d rather not go into.

Today, Douglas camps a lot more than I do, chiefly, I think, because he’s one of those guys who loves gear, and camping has lots of it. He told me the other day, “I have a 52-inch plasma TV at home, but my favorite thing is my new JetBoil.” That’s an $80 cup-shaped camping stove.

My own best gear is my camping pillow. They actually sell them for the wild, designed to compress tightly into your backpack. In my late 20s, I took one with me when I camped with all four of my brothers out west. When they saw I’d brought a pillow, they called me a girlie-man and made unkind remarks about whether I’d next get pantyhose. This hurt my feelings, but after they endured hours of sitting on uncushioned rocks at our site, and laying their heads at night on rolled-up clothes, everyone tried to steal my camping pillow, so I got respect for it after all.

My favorite camp destination was Conundrum Hot Springs in Colorado. There’s a big natural hot tub there formed by rocks, a 102-degree pool eight miles in at 11,000 feet. I lounged in it until midnight, went back to our tent and discovered something all campers know: There’s no such thing as flat ground in the wilderness. It may look that way, but by 2 a.m., you wake up having slid downhill to the bottom of your tent. I gave up and went back to the pool, where I found another camper sitting neck deep on a beach chair he’d packed all the way in from civilization. That guy knew how to live.

Clothes in the tub were optional. Earlier, I chose that option so I wouldn’t have soaked shorts, and besides, who would know me in the Colorado wilderness? Then a group of five arrived. After a few minutes, one of the women said to me, “Don’t you write for The Providence Journal?” She was from New Bedford. I’m still not over it.

The 2 a.m. wake-up reminds me of what may be the single worst part of camping — leaving the tent in the cold, dark, creepy middle of the night to visit the rest room, such as it is. I still have post-traumatic stress disorder from those moments.

I’ve done most camping trips along the New Hampshire stretch of the Appalachian Trail. You don’t appreciate the phrase “rocky New England soil” until you’ve done that. Actually, you can leave out the “soil” part. The New Hampshire Appalachian is like a cobblestone street laid out by a crew on acid. Every step is on angled rock.

Last summer, I spent two days hiking to the top of Mount Washington, and learned another truth about camping. As you start such a trip, you tell yourself it’ll be the time of your life. Within five minutes, all everyone asks is, “How much longer till we’re done?” Or at least: “Please God, just get me to the descent.” But in New Hampshire, you discover that down is harder than up. Picture being at the top of a three-mile staircase of jagged boulders. Middle-aged knees were not designed for that. I think it’s why God gave us the Mount Washington Cog Railway.

I’m not sure that camping can actually cure ADD and a weak immune system, but the Wildlife Foundation is right that it reminds you of important things. You panic a bit when the bars disappear from your cell, but it’s nice for a change to know you can’t send e-mail, check your Blackberry, talk on your Blue Tooth or text at dinner. And when did you last go to sleep at sundown and wake at dawn without an alarm clock?

Maybe it’s time again.

I’ll go see if I can find my pillow.

mpatinkin@projo.com