Well, decent galakei are half-way between a dumb flip-phone and a smartphone, so it's not quite so bad. They've got (limited) internet, can do email and bluetooth and all that.
Basically a fancy Nokia before they switched to full smartphones. Also, the plans are considerably cheaper per month (if you aren't sensible and use an MVNO) , which would be well within the means of a JK working part-time, if they wanted to pay their own way rather than piggybacking on their family plan.
But even for all that, it's be totally uncool to use one - you couldn't even pull off retro-cool or anything with one...