Good luck with that.

I'm reminded of my own childhood years, where most families had television, but some didn't (because it would be bad for the children.)

Annecdotally the kids with no TV would visit, and all they wanted to do was watch TV. The ones who had tvs at home played outside.

In reality in environments where kids have phones, it's more important for your kid to have a phone, and learn how to use it, than see it as a forbidden fruit.

Plus of course the fact that you think your 17 year old doesn't have a phone is delusional. They have one. The only question is whether they share that fact with you.

I get where you are coming from, but scary as it seems children don't magically become adults, making good decisions, on the day they turn 18. They become adults by slowly learning how to handle the world, by being guided with each new step, by making lots (and lots) of mistakes.

The areas that you block off completely are the areas where they will be the least mature, the least able to exercise good judgement.

That's typically why "bans" lead ultimately to worse outcomes not better ones.

You will destroy their social life and make them outcasts. A smartphone is absolutely necessary to stay in touch with friends nowadays, everyone is using various messaging apps.

Prohibition works and never has unintended side effects.

If you want to train your kids to lie and hide things from you, going too far in “their protection” is a good way to get there.

This sounds like what my religious nut parents would have done if smartphones had existed when I was a teen.

Their efforts to shelter me didn't work and caused me to feel guilt about seeking information about the outside world as I aged.

If you're really religious then you're not going to listen to me anyway, but if you're not then please reconsider depriving your children like this.

Nobody uses texts for anything, so they wouldn't be able to talk to anyone.

Not protecting them from anything in particular, or maybe I guess you could say from themselves. Kids commonly have issues with impulse control and general irresponsibility. By 14 they seemed old enough to not immediately lose or break their phones. Not in bed is to try to lay a foundation of good sleep habits. Having the common computer room keeps the sense of 'being in public', which helps the impulse control part as your motivations work differently when you're alone.

If there is no obvious answer to such a question, you can always say Russians.