There was a lot of change on that front in a very short period, with the kids getting older and cell phone saturation increasing, and it got compressed even further for the kids, because they were maintaining a “present” that was moving faster than their own ages. In “Unwelcome Visitor”, the only time the ‘fart signal’ is even mentioned, the kids were 13, and it was 2012–13. Some, but not all, of them had phones. By the time they were 15 in “Severed Alliance”, it was 2016–17. Jack’s present now is presumably 2024, and he never knew a world without Zambians.

Lottie had a phone as far back as “Team Spirit”, but it wasn’t even a smartphone, and she didn’t carry it because it was “for emergencies” (so of course when there was an emergency, she didn’t have it), and she got a new one, also not a smartphone, in “Fire Inside”. In “Forked Road”, Mildred had a new terrible smartphone that came with Neil’s phone plan, and at the end of the story, Sonny was listening to The Whom on his smartphone. By “Severed Alliance”, Shauna was using her smartphone to covertly Facetime Lottie when she was kidnapped.