There are times when I swear my daughter has a deeper relationship with her phone than she does with me. Laila is 11 and we bought her an iPhone earlier this year after she waged a relentless campaign that featured crying, begging and accusations that we were going to make her the laughing stock of her class unless we conceded to her demands. We held out for as long as we could because we feared that once she had a smartphone we would start losing her — and we were pretty much on the money.
Now she comes home from school and immediately vanishes into her room, where she decompresses with Subway Surfers, gets creative with Piscart and chats to her friends on WhatsApp. There are, nominally, limits on how much time she is allowed on each app but in reality I usually find myself agreeing to extend how much time she is allowed because the consequence of not agreeing is crying, begging and general disquiet.
