Hi Geraldine,

I just turned thirteen and for my birthday my parents gave me… a dumb phone. An actual dumb phone. It can call and text and that’s basically it. No apps. No music. No anything.

It’s so embarrassing. All my friends have smartphones now. Most of them have their parents’ old iPhones, and one boy in my class has a Galaxy Flip (which everyone crowds round at break because it makes that cool snapping sound when it folds).

I feel like the only person in Year 8 who’s stuck in 2005.

My dad says when he was my age, he had a “basic phone for emergencies” and that’s all I need too. He says if I need something for school research, he’ll get me a tablet. But that’s not the point. You can’t exactly whip out a tablet at lunchtime to join in games.

At break everyone plays these phone games together, and they’re always sharing funny videos and playlists. I have to wait until I get home to listen to what they send me, and by then the joke’s over and everyone’s moved on. I feel left out.

My mum agrees with my dad. They say I’ll “thank them one day.”

But I’m worried I’m going to lose friends because I don’t have a proper phone.

How do I convince my dad this isn’t just me being dramatic?

Miss FOMO

Oh, Miss FOMO,

First of all, allow me to commend you on a most expressive nom de plume. It captures the modern condition rather well.

Now then.

You are not dramatic. You are thirteen. That is quite different. Thirteen is the age at which belonging feels like oxygen and any restriction feels like exile. So let me begin by acknowledging that your feelings are real. Being left out at lunchtime is no trifling matter.

However — and I say this with the calm authority of someone who once believed flared jeans were a social necessity — the presence of a folding telephone does not create friendship. It only creates a moment of spectacle.

Your father is not attempting to ruin your social life. He is attempting to protect something he cannot quite name. Time. Attention. Focus. Childhood. All four.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: you are unlikely to convince him by arguing that you are “losing friends.” Most sensible parents hear that phrase and translate it as: “Please fund my social anxiety.” They then dig their heels in.

Instead, if you wish to be persuasive, you must be strategic.

Have a calm conversation with your parents — not during an argument, not immediately after someone brandishes a Galaxy Flip — and ask what specific concerns they have about smartphones. Is it screen time? Social media? Safety? Distraction?

Once you know their reasons, you can suggest compromises.

• Limited screen hours.
• No social media accounts (yet).
• A trial period with clear rules.
• Shared access to settings and passwords.

When young people demonstrate responsibility, parents become astonishingly flexible. When young people demand fairness, parents become granite.

One more thing.

If your friendships rely entirely on phone games at lunchtime, then those friendships may not be as fragile as you fear, or as deep as you deserve. True friends will still sit with you, still laugh with you, still include you. And if they occasionally forget to wait for you to get home to hear a song, that is an inconvenience, not abandonment.

You are not behind. You are simply on a slightly different timetable, and life is full of those.

In the meantime, I suggest cultivating something delightfully analogue to make you fascinating rather than frustrated. A sketchbook. A musical instrument. A notebook of dreadful poetry. The girl who brings something interesting to the table is rarely left alone for long.

Stand tall, Miss FOMO. Your phone does not define your worth, even if it does fold in half.

Yours,

Geraldine