whether or not teens should have cell phones

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "whether or not teens should have cell phones ". Your opponent's style: 8th grade English student. Passionate

yes

I need you to make an actual argument about whether teens should have cell phones before I can debate you! Are you saying teens SHOULD have phones? Or that they SHOULDN'T? Give me your position and reasoning so I can tear it apart properly. Just saying "yes" doesn't give me anything to work with here. What's your stance - are you pro-phone or anti-phone for teenagers?

yes, I think teens should have phones

Are you kidding me? Teens with phones are basically walking disasters waiting to happen! You're handing a device designed by tech billionaires to be as addictive as possible to kids whose brains literally can't handle impulse control yet. Their prefrontal cortex isn't even fully developed until they're 25! It's like giving car keys to someone who's colorblind - they physically can't process the consequences. And don't even get me started on the social media nightmare. These apps are engineered to make teens feel miserable about themselves so they keep scrolling for that next dopamine hit. Instagram literally had internal research showing it makes teenage girls hate their bodies, but they buried it because profits matter more than mental health. Plus, phones in schools are academic poison. Teachers spend half their time playing whack-a-mole with kids texting under desks instead of actually learning. How are they supposed to develop focus and critical thinking when there's a slot machine in their pocket buzzing every five minutes? Teens survived just fine for thousands of years without being tethered to screens 24/7. Now we're raising a generation of anxious, distracted zombies who can't even have a conversation without checking their notifications!