Should your 13 year old get a cell phone?

Material wants!
My soon to be 13 year old son came home from school yesterday and asked me what I wrote on my blog.  I told him about David not getting a car next year when he turns 16.   He shrugged and said , "Well, that's nothing.  A 7th grader not having a cell phone is way worse.  Can I please get a cell phone for my birthday?  That is all I want.  I am the only 7th grader without one."   He may not be exaggerating.   Everyone of his friends that come here have cell phones.  The coaches ask him for HIS cell phone number.  Things are changing!   A few years ago we would not have even considered a new teenager having his own cell phone...now we are considering it.  There seems to be an underlying set of rules among kids about not calling the house phone and talking with ugh! a parent!  Just not right ...better to text nonstop with intellectual phrases like yea.  We as parents seem to not embrace the world of technology like the rest of the world  and  try to keep things as simple as possible. When I went to the AT&T store to replace a battery in my first generation flip phone, the 18 year old employee who helped me was looking at the phone like do they still make these kind of phones?   Then he starts playing with the zero features on the phone and gets a panic look  shakes his head and says , " I don't know what is wrong with your phone.   I can't fix it.  I think I broke it."  And I said, "What? Why?"   He was not really looking too good.  He said, " I can't find your contacts.  I can only find 7."   I said, "I only have 7."  He said, "What?" And almost had a heart attack there. ..Guess we may just have to accept the 2011 trends of society and get another kid , another cell phone.  At least we get a break on the family plan!