[jader201]

> If this is a problem for you as a parent, you have the choice of not buying your kid the phone in the first place, or not letting him take it to school.

Whenever I see arguments like these, I always feel that the person likely isn’t a parent of a teen.

There is a real sense of isolation and exclusion that teens feel when they don’t have cell phones or aren’t allowed to use them. The consequences are likely (for some parents/teens) worse than letting them have them.

Only when phones are more widely seen as shameful or unhealthy to have before adulthood will that not be the case. Until then, some other form of banning seems to be the only way to level the playing field and make it less isolating.