Just say no. If you want a reason, phones and data plans are expensive. They can see their friends in person.
My oldest just went to middle school this year. He has always had his own computer at home since young, so he's not new to technology. Personally I have not wanted to get him a phone mostly because mobile gaming is basically the worst thing ever invented. But I digress.
Do you know what happens in middle school? The teacher will give you time to do some assignment, and then you know what they let you do when you are done? Play on your phone. You know what nearly all kids are doing at lunch? Playing on their phones and chatting with their friends about it.
Now what happens if you don't have a phone? You get to sit there like the idiot without a phone. In middle school. Where kids are already learning just how much of little jerks they can be.
It would be glorious if the school had a no-phone policy. But they don't. So you want me to say "no" to my son so he can be the one that gets to twiddle his thumbs while every other single person around is playing on their phone and chatting? Yeah, makes sense.
Not to mention- the main reason we also had to get him a phone was for communication. That was our idea before we even realized how much they let kids use the phone at school.
Also without even the above, your idea of "they can see their friends in person!" is really cute. Yeah, because it's that easy. We live in an area that you can't walk to anyones house. So your brilliant idea is they can't communicate with friends unless they are taken to see their friend? And who does that? What if neither family can make it work?
I guess you don't know until you know.. but you- don't know.
If you want to give your kid as a present a bad life experience, don't buy a phone, but then live like a person in a cave, while the world goes on.
The real lesson is to be a good parent and define clear screening times, at least at home, where you can, more or less, control it. But a total ban isn't possible IMHO
I've got kids in public schools and one in a slightly-fancy private school.
The public school kids all get phones super-early and are prone to mocking kids for "being poor" over stupid shit like not having a phone (one of mine was so-mocked for "only having one backpack"—JFC, was Fussell ever right to shit on the class-anxious, pitiful, absurd Middle, give me "High Prole" over that crap any day).
Meanwhile, the private school kids whose parents are doctors and attorneys and VPs and related to major local politicians, get phones later and don't regard them as a status symbol. Phone ownership rate is maybe 50% by 7th grade, while I'd say it's that high (maybe higher?) by 4th or 5th in the public schools, and more like 95% by 7th. The private school also has much stricter rules about phone use during school (I gather all the area public schools have totally given up on stopping all but the most egregious use of them in class, as the parents who gave the kids the phones won't back them on enforcing anti-phone rules, and will in fact throw tantrums over any such enforcement)
What if they have no friends and nobody want to be friends anywhere but Snapchat, etc?
I can see you are using 4 yo arguments for 13 yo teenagers, perhaps you do not have any children and are wasting our time.
By the way, do you know what they do with their friends in person? Sit around on their phones watching tiktoks and browsing instagram then making comments to each other about it. They have no idea how to socialize without their phones.
I mean look at the example they have to follow though, it's literally all around them. Adults do the same thing constantly. The social pressure to conform to it is ridiculously high and for an easily influenced teenager, astronomical. A child or teen that's outside of this norm is instantly visible and vulnerable; they are bullied relentlessly.
On one hand, I do think social media is deleterious to mental health - I can vouch, for the positive impact on my own the more I distance myself from it!
On the other hand,
>Sit around on their phones watching tiktoks and browsing instagram then making comments to each other about it. They have no idea how to socialize without their phones.
Sounds so similar to the complaints levered at my friends and I for "not knowing how to play outside" because we wanted to shoot bad guys on the PS2 in the basement on the weekend. Or "not knowing how to socialize normally" because we talked over AIM all the time. When my oldest brother was a little kid, similar complaints for sitting in front of the TV. Or the older TV show trope of the teens tying up the home phone line.
I think there is some unique evil to the algorithm/recommendation driven social media of today, but it's hard not to also see that these criticisms all fit a pattern that seems to have been ongoing for decades, and wonder where on the spectrum the truth lies.