[brarsanmol]

Undergraduate Sophomore here, hopefully I can help shine some light on what your son might be experiencing.

I also had an Android phone from 7th grade to 12th grade, and definitely faced the same attitude/behaviour your son experienced.

First, you should address the bullying. That is the most important part, kids are vicious and the phone might just be an easy excuse to pick on your son. You should raise this issue with other kids' parents as nicoburns said.

Second, it can definitely be a bit isolating being the only one or the few kids with an Android phone (especially in the States) a lot of social activity revolves around the Apple Ecosystem (iMessage, iMessage Games, FaceTime, etc...). I found that when I got an iPhone I felt a lot more "connected" to my peers simply because we shared the same platform, its unfortunate but it is the reality.

Third, and this may be controversial, I would get your son an iPhone, I assume the dependence for cell phones has only gotten increasingly higher post-covid and feeling left out at that age can hurt pretty bad. You could perhaps make him "earn" it by doing chores, getting good grades, etc...

[LVB]

>Third, and this may be controversial, I would get your son an iPhone, I assume the dependence for cell phones has only gotten increasingly higher post-covid and feeling left out at that age can hurt pretty bad.

We've definitely made some of these concessions with our kids more lately. They don't have phones yet, but they do have iPads, and it is already apparent how pervasive the iMessage ecosystem is. If they were on Android they'd be the only ones not in their friends iMessage and Facetime groups, which would be pretty isolating.

Another commenter talked about spending $300 as a targeted fix to a problem. The idea that just doing the simple thing is sometimes the best choice resonates with me. I recall being bullied in a PE class in highschool. After so much uncomfortable intervention by teachers I was like, "oh ffs can't you just move me to the other class so I'm away from these assholes?". And they reluctantly did, and things were better. No it didn't address any root causes, but it make my life much nicer for 4 months which was very appreciated.

[saghm]

I had a similar experience as a kid. In 6th and 7th grade, I was pretty heavily bullied, and throughout the second year I tried to convince my parents to let me transfer to a different school. After 7th grade, my parents decided that it was worth trying, and I ended up transferring to local, much smaller school (there were only around 40 students in the entire 8th grade the year I was there, so teachers were able to keep an eye on things better instead of using the perennial copout of "we didn't see it, so it didn't happen" to avoid having to even attempt to address the obvious negative social dynamic at play). Not only was I suddenly much happier, but suddenly my fairly average grades of B's and C's turned into mostly A's; I always tested well, but my general unhappiness fed my anxiety, which caused me to often forget assignments and not put in as much effort as I otherwise could have. Seeing this, my parents also let me attend a different high school than my brothers had, where my academic turnaround continued, and due grades before 9 not being considered at all for college applications, I was able to get into a much better college than I otherwise would have and put me in a much better environment (both in terms of motivation and exposure) to end up landing a good software engineering job out of college. Looking back at it, it's hard not to see my parents' decision to let me switch from a place I was severely unhappy to a place where I could be comfortable and develop more socially as foundational not just for my emotional well-being but the necessary catalyst for me to be able to reach financial stability virtually right after college graduation. It's hard to imagine how different my life would be in almost every way if I didn't have that opportunity.

[meetingthrower]

Yes. We have a no apple house but I bought my kids iphones because of the iMessage monopoly. It's not that they are looked down on for blue bubbles but that literally they CANNOT participate in group texts! Apple should burn in hell for that....

I wish US kids would move to Whatsapp like the rest of the world but that's what we have here.

[toastal]

Moving to WhatsApp is hardly an upgrade. Having to trust the encryption out of Meta and be required to share your address book/contacts and metadata with them is not the future we should want for the next generation. It's not a "rest of the world thing either"; I'm out here in SEA and the only folks to ask me for a WhatsApp (don't have) were Europeans.

[roundandround]

I'd recommend against the earn it approach to gain an object that is at the center bullying. People don't like to think of their own kids as possible bullies, but suffering and earning is basic justification to make one a bully towards those who "still don't have one."

[brarsanmol]

Thinking about this a bit more, I agree. Definitely not a parent haha but I would struggle between just capitulating and buying an iPhone or just holding firm and saying no, so I was thinking of somewhere in the middle but looking back I can definitely see how that could also cause some unintended issues.