Why StoneBridge Drew a Clear Line and How We Walk It Together
By Noel Thomason
Head of School
Several months ago, I sent an email to our families with a tone of urgency that was impossible to soften. It was not written to alarm, nor to accuse, but to awaken. As Head of School—and as a father—I could no longer ignore what had become painfully clear: the vast majority of the struggles we are navigating with adolescents today are tied, directly or indirectly, to smartphones and unrestricted internet access.
Discipline concerns. Relational fractures. Anxiety and despair. Identity confusion. The threads trace back, again and again, to a device that fits neatly into a pocket and opens a door far wider than a young heart can bear.
This article is written for StoneBridge’s broader community, grandparents, alumni, donors, friends, and partners—because the issue before us is not narrow. It touches the very nature of childhood, discipleship, and formation. It explains why that email was necessary, clarifies the convictions behind it, and introduces a new resource we have built to help families walk wisely in a digital age.
The Digital Wilderness We Did Not Mean to Create
Let us be clear about first principles. Students do not own smartphones. Parents do. Adults purchase the device, pay the bill, and authorize access to a digital wilderness that is anything but neutral. Within that wilderness are predators, counterfeit identities, sexualized content, algorithm-driven addiction, and a constant pressure to perform, compare, and conform. To place an unfiltered smartphone into the hands of a child is not merely to offer a tool for convenience. It is to grant unsupervised access to a world intentionally engineered to shape desire, capture attention, and monetize immaturity.
History gives us a sobering mirror. In ancient Rome, unwanted infants were sometimes left exposed overnight to see if they would survive. We recoil at such cruelty, and rightly so. Yet today, many children are abandoned in a different way. They are set loose in a digital world they are not equipped to navigate alone, with the hopeful assumption that they will “figure it out.” Dropping a teenager into the unrestrained internet is not unlike leaving them on the streets of a major city for the weekend and expecting them to return unscathed. The danger is not hypothetical. It is daily.
StoneBridge has long held a no-phone policy during the school day. For more than a decade, this boundary has preserved focus, strengthened relationships, and protected childhood. And yet, year by year, the pressure mounts not only from students but also, at times, from parents who provide the very devices we are trying to hold at bay and who sometimes text their children during class hours. When those boundaries are bypassed, the protections families entrusted to us are quietly weakened.
A Biblical Conviction, Not a Cultural Reaction
Our stance is not built on fear or trend. It is anchored in Scripture and the sacred trust given to parents.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). A child’s heart is not a neutral space; it is a formative ground where affections, loyalties, and identity are shaped. Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to the pattern of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). Yet the modern internet is designed precisely to conform, to disciple, to shape young minds more by algorithm than by truth. God’s charge is unambiguous: “Bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). That responsibility rests first with mothers and fathers. It cannot be outsourced to schools, churches, or devices.
This is why StoneBridge speaks with clarity. Not because we believe our students are weak, but because we understand the power of temptation that is engineered, personalized, and persistent. Guardrails are not signs of mistrust; they are acts of love.
What the Evidence Is Telling Us
What we observe at StoneBridge mirrors a national crisis. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that social media cannot yet be deemed safe for youth and has called for warning labels akin to those on tobacco. Nearly 40 percent of high school students report persistent feelings of sadness, and more than one in five have seriously considered suicide. Early exposure to pornography has become disturbingly common. Sleep deprivation, diminished attention, and declining academic performance rise in direct proportion to screen use.
These are not statistics in the abstract. They are sons and daughters. Childhoods are being compressed, distorted, and, in many cases, quietly stolen. While society debates the issue, schools entrusted with formation cannot afford to wait.
Even secular voices are sounding the alarm. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, describes what he calls “the Great Rewiring of Childhood,” connecting the rise of smartphones and social media to unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. His recommendations to delay smartphones until high school, delay social media until at least 16, keep schools phone-free, and restore real-world play all echo the wisdom Scripture has long affirmed. If those without a biblical worldview can see the danger, how much more should we, who know our children are made in the image of God, act with courage and care?
Covenant Requires Partnership
StoneBridge will continue to hold the line. Our campus will remain phone-free. Our teachers will model wisdom. Our administration will reinforce clear boundaries. But no school, no matter how committed, can do this alone. Formation is a shared work.
The strength of a covenant community is unity. We ask families to delay smartphones as long as possible, to keep social media out of childhood and to establish rhythms at home that protect what is tender: no phones in bedrooms, devices turned off at night, screen-free meals, and intentional time for conversation, prayer, and presence. We ask parents to model what they expect, demonstrating by their own habits that relationships matter more than screens. We ask our community to stand together and resist the familiar refrain, “Everyone else is doing it.” Our strength has always been found in walking together.
A New Resource for the Climb
Recognizing both the urgency of the issue and the need for practical help, we have launched a new Digital Parenting Resource Page for StoneBridge families. This page gathers trusted research, biblical perspective, practical tools, and age-appropriate guidance to help parents navigate decisions about devices, internet access, gaming, and social media with wisdom and confidence. You can find it here.
This resource is not about shaming or second-guessing. It is about equipping. Parenting in a digital age is uncharted territory for many of us. No one walks it perfectly. But together, with shared convictions and shared tools, we can walk it faithfully.
A Call Worth Answering
You have already made a profound investment by choosing a StoneBridge education, an investment of resources, time, trust, and prayer. Do not allow a relatively inexpensive device to erode the eternal return of that sacrifice. Childhood is not something to rush through. Innocence, once lost, is not easily recovered. Formation requires patience, courage, and restraint.
The culture will not slow down. The pressures will not ease. But a united community can stand firm.
Together, let us guard the hearts entrusted to us. Let us raise up a generation forged in wisdom, strengthened by virtue, and anchored in Christ—young people who can engage the world not as captives of its patterns, but as lights within it.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). May we be found faithful in that charge.
