Okay so I'm Gen Z so for the older generations, this might not make sense to you. But basically, this is my experience with life as a Gen Z:
When I was in high school some years ago, everyone in my class had smartphones, and I did, but I'm horrible at taking care of my stuff, so I kinda just broke a lot of phones.
When I was in Middle School, I had one in like Grade 7, I broke it in like about a year, then in Grade 8, I also broke in in a year. It was some budget phones that did not have any water resistance, and did not have gorilla glass like modern day smartphone do. So, I don't even have to explain, I don't remember what exactly happened, but its probably a combinations of drops or water damage, plus budget phones are very poorly designed. And in Grade 9, I also got a phone, and broke it in a few months. And, since I didn't really have a job (already stuggling at school and my parents were not struggling financially in any way so... yea there was kinda no push for me to get a job, don't judge pls), and my parent's weren't very happy with me breaking stuff so often, so I never got a phone ever again. I mean, they could afford it, but they were reluctant, and I didn't wanna push for it since I felt bad for asking.
So basically I spent like the rest of high school not having a phone at all.
When ever there was a class assignment that required doing online research, the school would often not have any chromebooks available (this was in like 2018 to 2020, for context), so teachers just asked the class to use their phones to do research in class. So there was valuable class time that I WAS UNABLE TO DO THE ASSIGNMENT. 🤦♂️ And this happend quite often. So often that I lost count. Probably over 100 times throught highschool. So I just sad there, bored, doodling on a piece of paper. Sometimes its worse when it was a CLASS ASSIGNMENT that aas due at the end of class, and the teacher had to ask a classmate to lend me their phone, or the teacher had to lend me their laptop so I can do the research or whatever that it was. Makes me feel like a caveman lol and I felt awkward af.
Also, my acquaintances (I never felt like they were "friends") all have smartphones, but I didn't so we kinda didn't have a connection outside of school. No jokes, no shittalking teachers behind their backs, no meme sharing. I kinda felt left out. I mean it didn't even matter if I had android, MMS groupchats still would've worked, and some circles used discord.
But I didn't have a phone... so FOMO to the maximum. And thats probably why the acquaintances remained acquaintances.
These days, everyone is on their phones. If yiu didn't have one, you stood out. Like the standard thing when there was no assignments, boom, everyone pulls out their phone. Substitute teacher, boom, everyone on their phones. Lunch time, boom, phones. On a school trip, phones. Any "downtime" is apparantly phone time. And of course, its fueled by boredom, before phones, people probably just got bored and stared into space. So I get why people use their phones. But they could also TALK TO EACH OTHER. Today, if you tried to have a conversation, you're a weirdo. Its all just Instagrams, Snapchat, and lately, fucking TikToks 🤨 (circa 2020).
So at lunch time, I'm just some weirdo doodling, or finishing homework assignments because why do it at home, when there a whole free lunch period that have nothing to do?
And the worst thing is this thing called "Kahoot", its a classroom game thingy where the teacher sets up like a "game room" where the class joins it using their phones to answer (class related) questions, sort of like a quiz, or sometimes its just a fun practice thing. And you get a score for getting it right, and also extra point for getting it faster. So sometimes the first place gets extra credits, sometimes the 2nd and 3rd also get extra credits. But you need a phone to participate, and I don't have one. Meaning, no chance for extra credits. Like, Fuck My Life lol.
So yea...
TLDR: Everyone these days just expect you to have a phone, in school, in social life, in work, everywhere, and, according to society, you're a "weirdo" if you don't have one.