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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Annalisa Barbieri

My mum won’t let me have a smartphone. Is she being unfair?

An illustration of one woman holding her hand out as if asking a question, and another with her head turned away

My mum has always been protective, and I fear it is destroying my social life because I haven’t grown up with much access to social media. I don’t mean to say it’s OK to be exposed to social media at a young age, but it needs to be controlled in a certain way.

Because I had a flip phone until the middle of secondary school, I haven’t had a TikTok or Snapchat streak with anyone because I never learned how it works. I know this might sound like me complaining over nothing, but it sometimes feels like my mum is purposely doing this to damage me.

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