My firstborn now has a phone. She's had a whole bunch of firsts lately and the phone is mostly for my paranoia's sake to make sure she can stay safe in all her activities. Let's see, what new things is she up to or will be soon?
- She got her first Young Person's Travelcard. Which means she can now take all the busses she wants to. Alone. She has to pay for the tube so at least I know she'll not be going off to random places. Intentionally. She's not a got a good sense of direction and I worry she'll end up in Morden on her way to some afterschool club.
- She's starting secondary school next week. It's a bit of an awkward trek. I'm pretty sure she can manage it without a phone. Which is good because the school does 't allow phones at all in the building at all. Whatsoever. A Policy I find quite antediluvian. but then again, they have a dress code, which I find mad as well. but that's a post for another time.
- She's got after school activities she'll be going to on her own. I've been going with her to some for years, and still she can't recall which bus we take and which stop to get off at.
- she's been going over to friends houses a bunch. Not that I don't trust her to walk a well known route that's like 10 minutes by foot. It's more we want to be able to remind her to pick up stuff on the way home, or her to have a way to get in touch when she somehow turns the 10 min walk into 40 min by getting on the wrong bus or something.
- We did make a set of house keys for her, but we didn't them to her yet. Mostly because she's never home when we are not, so the only point would be if we're too lazy to walk to the door to let her in. but I also worry about her losing the keys, as changing locks is such a huge pain.
So I got her a S30 Nokia. It's almost completely unchanged from the 90s. The only difference is it's in colour and the speaker can make more sounds. But otherwise it's the exact same terrible UI which made the iPhone such a success. It takes a "mini" size SIM (you know, the biggest possible SIM you can find) which I didn't think anyone used anymore. But it is a lovely shade of blue, which I like.
It doesn't even have internet – something I feel kind of guilty about. Partly because I'm paying for a few GB of data, which she'll not be able to use. And partly because she's missing out on things like bus schedules and maps. I feel zero guilt about no whatsapp, though.
I also feel guilty about making her have to use T9 to write text messages. I hated that back in the day, and switched to stylus/touchscreen/mini-qwerty phones as soon as I possibly could. But this thing doesn't even have Bluetooth. So she's now learning how to associate letters with the number buttons. Like she's a millennial or something.
In the end, this phone is an experiment. It's to see if she can keep it without losing or breaking it. I mean, it's a Nokia, so breaking it will be a challenge. Losing, I really don't know. I do know her track record of keeping pairs of gloves as a pair is bad enough we stopped buying her gloves. I have told her that if she does manage to not lose it and keep it one piece for long enough we can upgrade to something more 21st century.
