Phone time and teens

and games time and teens are back in the news.

Ms W wandered in yesterday morning and complained that her friends were "all playing on their phones".  This may not have been strictly correct but I still understood her frustration.

Ms W has a mobile phone. She keeps it in "Matron's Office" - the office of the woman in charge of the school boarding house. She uses it once a day to talk to her father or, if he is not going to be available, to me. That's it.

At weekends she brings it home, might make the occasional call to her "best friend" - and that has been the same girl right through school - or use it to tell her father she is ready to be picked up.  Apart from that she doesn't use it. 

I know that isn't usual among teens. Ms W is as capable as any other teen at sending a text message. She has taken over what used to be the email account she shared with her father when she was young but it rarely gets used. She isn't on any social media platform. 

"That stuff is boring. I'd rather do something," she has told us more than once.

We wonder if she is missing out on anything and what her friends really think of her attitude but she seems to be popular at school. She is at the top of her year, is doing an extra language, plays in school teams (because it is expected of her), plays chess and helps her friends. She also spends time in the school library each week, often reading to the youngest students or listening to them read aloud. At home she cooks, gardens, works on things like models and origami, and reads. If her father needs to go to an event of some sort she is often invited to go as well - because she can have what she calls a "sensible sort of conversation" with an adult. 

She is by no means perfect but she has tried not to be "one of those moody people because it is just me and my dad and I don't get to see him as much as I want". It's a great attitude for a young girl growing up without her mother. 

But I do wonder what she is missing out on by not using her phone and her internet access the way others do.  She is now trusted to use her internet access at home without supervision. She could spend hours there if she wanted to do it. What is much more likely is that she will look for specific information, use it in whatever way she needs to do it and then go and do something else. One of her teachers told me, "This is just not normal - but I wish it was." 

No, it isn't normal and I am concerned that she might feel lonely - as I think she might have felt yesterday. Even someone as self-contained as Ms W needs company sometimes.