Dear High School Community,

This week I’ve started reading Freya India’s recent book, GIRLS®: Generation Z and the Commodification of Everything. In it, she argues that many young people, particularly girls, are growing up in a culture that turns identity, relationships, and even the self into products to be curated, performed, and consumed. Social media does not merely entertain, it trains. It forms habits of comparison, self-presentation, and constant evaluation.

Recently, our Parent Association hosted speakers from the local NGO Look Up Hong Kong, who presented compelling research and firsthand accounts regarding cell phone addiction and its impact on adolescent mental health, attention, and relationships. The patterns are deeply concerning. What we are facing is not a minor distraction but a formative force shaping an entire generation.

As a secondary school, we believe it is our responsibility to respond with clarity and conviction. Beginning next year, we will adopt Yondr pouches and enforce a strict phone enforcement policy. We will also continue to be judicious and restrained in our academic use of technology, guided by both cognitive science and a Christian vision of human flourishing.

This is not about nostalgia or control. It is about formation. We want our students’ attention directed toward truth, goodness, and real community, not algorithms.

The most helpful thing parents can do is support these efforts consistently at home. When school and home are aligned, students thrive. When initiatives are second-guessed or undermined, the formation we seek becomes fragmented.

We are responding to a real cultural crisis, not fearfully, but faithfully. The way forward is not isolation, but partnership.