It’s astonishing to think that for a certain section of society (albeit in this case teenage girls) not having a particular phone can result in you being effectively ostracised from your group of friends.
Not having an iPhone can be social suicide, notes Casey. One of her friends found herself effectively exiled from their circle for six months because her parents dawdled in upgrading her to an iPhone. Without it, she had no access to the iMessage group chat, where it seemed all their shared plans were being made.
“She wasn’t in the group chat, so we stopped being friends with her,” Casey says. “Not because we didn’t like her, but we just weren’t in contact with her.”
via (ugh) The Huffington Post.
I know of similar groups of friends who run on BBM. Except they’re forty. And talking to their mothers.