Creating a new icloud on a device to protect privacy

I have an old device that I want to creat an entirely separate icloud for to create new socials without alerting my contacts. I’m in the middle of the process of creating a new icloud account and it’s requesting that I link a phone number to it for authentication purposes.

Will doing this connect my account to this phone number and as a result recognize my identity + alert my contacts of these social media accounts?

device icloud privacy protect