They aren’t jealous of the tech. They are jealous of not being included. They might not get invited to events or understand their friends jokes because they weren’t part of the group chats. This can make them resent their parents and give them social anxiety. Kids can be very cruel and lack the empathy skills to understand why their friend isn’t allowed a phone.

Overdoing it either direction can be a serious mistake.

>They are jealous of not being included.

It's better to instill in kids early that it's important to cultivate deep rather than wide social connections. Teaching your kid to stand up for themselves and make friends that don't care about blue chat bubbles or fashionable clothes is necessary. Because there's always gonna be some group you're not going to be cool enough to be a part of. Maybe you're not pretty enough, athletic enough, maybe your parents aren't rich enough to send you on the holiday trip the other kids can go on, sooner or later everyone's going to learn the lesson that this isn't how you build genuine connections.

I noticed this even as an adult in my 20s, people who hadn't ever learned to deal with social rejection carry that teenage group behavior into their own adult life and can't deal with exclusion.

> Teaching your kid to stand up for themselves

But they aren't standing up for themselves. They're standing up for decisions forced on them by their parents.

> make friends that don't care about blue chat bubbles or fashionable clothes is necessary

It has nothing to do with being cool (and I've never heard of anyone referencing blue chat bubbles that wasn't using it derogatorily like you are). It's about not being unable to communicate with people. Like, they may have friends who want to invite them to a party but don't because they put the event on (whatever app is cool). Your kids don't see it and therefore don't go to an event everyone wanted them to go to.

> But they aren't standing up for themselves. They're standing up for decisions forced on them by their parents.

They're learning how to deal with adversity created by circumstances beyond their control.

> and I've never heard of anyone referencing blue chat bubbles that wasn't using it derogatorily like you are)

there is a reference to this in TFA, it's a real phenomenon

>They're standing up for decisions forced on them by their parents

That is quite literally the point of being a parent. They're children. They're not supposed to be raised by other children or by social media personalities they want to be like, but by you.

If that means having to be the bad and unfun parent who they get mad at because they can't get to do the thing everyone else is doing that's the job. Good parents give children values that last a lifetime even if the kid doesn't understand it or like it.

The chat bubble thing is a reference to a surprisingly widespread clash between kids with iphones and kids with android phones (https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-...)

Kids can be naive and selfish, but even most kids aren't so unempathetic as to not understand that their friend doesn't have a phone because their parents won't buy them one. The addage "if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" seems relevant here.

Oh I’m sure they aren’t consciously, but are they going to make the effort everyday to communicate with the person who makes it hard to be reached? It will be harder to maintain/build relationships. I’m not passing judgement either way, I’m just stating a reality and that reality can be dark.

For sure. But I think the reality where everything kids do is being watched under the microscope of their friends and their parents is a dark one too. It's for sure also fostering social anxiety, but that seems to be the reality that's more culturally acceptible.