Basic Trope: A teenager who spends an awful lot of time on their phone.
- Straight: Alice is a 15-year-old girl who is seen using her cell phone in most scenes.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice is constantly on her phone... and the word "constantly" here is used in its literal sense!
- All teens, from their thirteenth birthday until their twentieth, have preoccupations with phones.
- Downplayed: Alice loves her phone, but not nearly as much as her other interests.
- Justified:
- Alice has a lot of friends who live far away from her.
- Alice just got her phone and she's savoring the novelty.
- Alice is a phone.
- Alice is actually an up and coming real estate agent, and calling people is one of the key aspects of the job.
- Inverted:
- Alice hates phones.
- Alice likes phones and she's a baby or a senior citizen.
- Everyone is nearly always on their phones, except the teens.
- Teenagers are embarassed to be seen on their phones as they are seen as "kiddy", perhaps related to Augmented Reality, brain implants, or similar replacing them (and not being advisable for younger children).
- Subverted:
- Alice is mentioning an "important text" but it turns out that she just uses her phone the regular amount, that text was just legitimately important.
- Alice is seen using her phone all day, but it turns out that it's because her twin brother Bob is away on holiday and she wants to keep in touch. When he comes back, she doesn't use the phone nearly as often.
- It turns out to be a shapeshifter pretending to be Alice.
- Alice appears to be a teenager, but she's Really 700 Years Old.
- Alice turns out to be a mute amputee and relies upon it for Text To Speech and relies upon it to speak and control her other limbs. She has a death grip upon it for a damned good reason.
- Double Subverted:
- The person who texted her is a girl in her class, who does use her phone all the time.
- Bob on the other hand...
- The real Alice is on her phone a lot too.
- Alice is still an adolescent in her species.
- Parodied: Alice's parents complain about her using her phone all the time, even though they use it as much as she does.
- "Alice" is actually a sapient smartphone who controls her bioandroid puppet "body".
- Zig Zagged: There are many teens, who use their phones in various amounts, barring a select few who do not possess phones. There's also Charlie who is also on his cell phone a lot, although he's Alice and Bob's dad.
- Averted: There are no teens, no phones, or the teens use their phones a normal amount.
- Enforced: The authors are from an older generation, and want to make fun of the younger one.
- Invoked: Alice's parents give her a phone to shut her up.
- Exploited: Alice's parents can track her with her phone.
- Defied: Alice's parents restrict her phone use.
- Discussed: "And I have this teenage cousin who's, like, always on her phone."
- Conversed: "Why do teens always love phones in these shows?"
- Deconstructed:
- Alice gets sleep deprived.
- Alice is about to graduate high school, and realizes that her addiction has stolen the memories she could have made in real life from her, and all those texts and Tweets didn't mean much after all.
- Alice's traumatic backstory shows what it would take to lead to such an overwhelming attachment. Despite all of her considerable traumas being unable to call for help for somebody else is the biggest player.
- Reconstructed: She learns not to use her phone at night. During the day, now that's another story.
- Played for Drama:
- Alice uses her phone in order to hide from other people thanks to her social anxiety.
- Alice secretly has a troubled adolescence, and her smartphone gives her the distraction or self-confidence she needs to cope with her problems.
- Alice develops a genuine addiction, losing the interests and personality she had as a child. Her loved ones notice and try to get her help, but she is resistant and in denial.
- Played for Laughs: Alice is The Lich and in the High School AU her Soul Jar is literally her phone. Hilarity Ensues when a teacher even confiscates it briefly up until her eyes fade out and body falls over inert and they think she is having a tantrum. Next episode teachers decide to let her have it and even ensure she has a charging point after the incident.
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