>...I hear they get teased (and sometimes bullied) if they don't have a half decent smartphone. I've also heard of kids getting left out of things socially for

>...I hear they get teased (and sometimes bullied) if they don't have a half decent smartphone. I've also heard of kids getting left out of things socially for the same reason. One family tried the "you don't need a smart phone until sometime in high school" thing, but their kid started missing invitations to everything because the plans developed on whatsapp, snapchat, or Facebook - all of which the kid didn't have real-time access to. They relented and got their middle school kid a smartphone. Way too much of the social world of students goes through phones to be able to keep up without a smart phone.