I’m 24, but I used a Nokia ‘dumbphone’ for the whole 2010s – I long to go back to it | Isabel Brooks

While my friends swapped funny videos on their smartphones, I enjoyed my freedom. Then society made that impossible

My gran has a new smartphone, and I am trying to help her navigate it. But she doesn't see the point. She says her smartphone is malevolent, sneaky and sly" because things on the screen disappear and cannot be retrieved. Her old dumbphone" is more reliable. I love it," she says. It never lets me down." I ask how she travels without maps. I work it out before I go." What about tickets for trains or events? Your mum's always sorted tickets." Even though I'm a tech-savvy, gen Z 24-year-old, I understand her arguments perfectly. I also made a choice to go without a smartphone for a whole decade, from 2010 to 2020. In 2020, my final year of university, I caved and bought one, a choice encouraged by my mum, who was anxious for me to be more contactable.

Back in 2010, when I was 11, the small number of kids in my year who had smartphones were treated like celebrities. We would crowd round, heads bent over a video game or YouTube, snatching the phone off each other to have a go. But then, over the next couple of years, smartphones became the norm, and suddenly everyone was posting pictures and sending messages or even nude shots from their own.

Isabel Brooks is a writer living in south-east London