All of their friends are on social media, all you do by taking their phones away is that they're no longer able to talk to their friends and engage in content /

All of their friends are on social media, all you do by taking their phones away is that they're no longer able to talk to their friends and engage in content / share information in the same way as all of their peers do worldwide. Phones and social media definitely have drawbacks like you mention, but the world has clearly made its peace with that. Using a phone is pretty fundamental to how people interact / engage / consume content in the current age, especially in the youth demographics. It's far better for children to be educated about a tool / told about the benefits and drawbacks than just be outright denied it, when as soon as they are out of college they will be reliant on a phone for practically all of their day to day life. (And no, I'm not taking about the 1% of people who don't use their phones usually or work entirely on their laptops, that's not the mainstream mode of operation)