A screaming child who had his iPad taken might come to your mind. Alpha Kids are reportedly not doing well in school and many are subject to the algorithms of today. They will have a front row seat to the future we are headed towards.
Do you have hope that Generation Alpha will live happy and fulfilling lives?
Part of how I maintain hope for the future is not buying in to arbitrary divisions like “generations” of people. They didn’t all hatch in a clutch and aren’t remotely homogenous enough to make generalizations about. It’s right up there with race as a really fucking stupid thing to draw conclusions from
They’re gonna need all the help they can get.
I’m kind of hopeful that as we (xennials and millennials) properly seize the reins of power from the baby boomers that things might start to improve.
Its so crazy to think that there are generations named for their historic “experience”.
Millennials experienced the turn of the century.
OK? Cool? Number 1>2 is apparently a defining quality?
I suppose it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, because evidently, we do care about 1>2.
We could have been Generation Y2K!
Y2K panic was a real phenomenon, and it starts with Y.
Missed opportunity…
Anyway, I salute Generation AI
Most of these names are equally vague. The year starting with 1 or 2 was pretty notable for changes in technology. For western countries, very particularly the US, pre/post 2001/09/11 is a very significant divide for public settings, regulated travel, and politics.
Gen X’s name refers to the frequent use of “X” in pop culture and was coined in a book. The Boomer’s experience is being born together in a large cohort. Gen Z means they came after Y, the initial name for millenials, trailing X. Alpha just restarts the alphabet, but in Greek. They’re all vague.
That’s good for alpha!
My daughter is Gen Alpha, 2014. It’s hard to believe she will be a teenager next year, I can’t believe how fast 12 years have flown by.
I really hope this country can start turning things around and Trump becomes a distant memory and women start getting the rights to their bodies back. Will be a long time before that happens in my state.
I think her generation is going to pay heavily for our failures but I believe they come out stronger in the end and more united against what will make their lives hard.
the education in america has been declining for decades, for public schools and many of us probably suffered from the participation grades which fast tracked you out of the school with “passing grades” only to severely struggle in community college even, ive seen so many in remedial courses taking grad school math, not even algebra. reading is a problem too, but writing essays is too advanced for remedial students.
I actually do. Gen Z is lost. Social media, COVID, they got fucked.
In California schools have banned cell phones starting next school year. More laws blocking kids under 18 or 16 from using social media are popping up around the world. I think alpha is going to have a shot.
Honestly, they seem kind of dumb, which I’m not blaming them for.
But that could just be the typical “next generation sucks” vibe you get from every aging generation.
I really hope they aren’t actually dumb because that’s going to make my senior years a lot bleaker.
i think its bleaker, since reading and math comprehension is below what it should be when they reach high school. also aspiration of some gen A to be an “influencer” isnt going to help when they get disappointed, and then dont do anything.
yes
i heard some people wanted to be influencers whent hey grow up, i dont see that much for people who graduate HS currently. not to blame them, but genz already have significant employment problems from getting a degree, as like millineals, even more so for genz. its only getting worst for gen alpha(unless u can afford private school for your children and hope the children isnt already set up to failure by the parents. i used to followed some asian yotubers they put thier child, toddler through private school, but they had to remove him because had behavioral issues due to combination of medication mental issues, the parents are extremely ill equipped to deal with the child, last thing i heard they just “sit at home and do nothing” because the mom is also “directionless in her life, so lazy”, and many of the old fans of thiers said he dint have a chance from the start, due to thier parents own problems, besides being magaty.
also besides that reading/writing, math comprehension is very low for people in HS and college, this isnt going to help them.
Influencer is just the new celebrity. How many of your peers wanted to be famous when they grew up? It is all the same.
I’m worried about the world we’re leaving them
Nope. World War III is going to be awful. If there are good times ahead, they are many, many years in the future.
I mean, I know a few kids who fit within that arbitrary bracket and they all seem well adjusted. Their parents are all very strict about screen time and encourage their children to join clubs and sports and other social activities. Even all the gen z’s in my own family, and there are quite a few of them, could not care less about social media and most of them live offline lives for the most part.
I think there will of course be a significant number of kids and youths who are attached to the internet in one way or the other, but I think a lot of us in here are the terminally online types who tend to forget that there is a much bigger world out there where a significant number of people live offline lives because the internet does nothing for them interestwise.
I’m the only one in my family who is plugged in and actually knows what the internet is about. I have one other family member who really likes to post stuff on Instagram, but they don’t really know or understand much else about the internet. Not the way I do. But I’m also one of the only socially weird people in my family. I like people, I just suck being physically around them for long stretches of time so I have always leaned towards using the internet for social contact because you can always withdraw when it begins to drain you.
Almost everybody else in my family is a social butterfly who goes out and does things irl. Same with my friends and colleagues and most of my acquaintances. They enjoy offline lives, building communities and spending quality time with their kids. They go to community meetings where they discuss social media usage for their kids and how they want politicians to place more restrictions on children’s and youth’s access to those platforms. They actively work for it.
That’s why I just can’t bring myself to buy in on that whole doomer mentality that the internet loves to circle jerk. There are simply too many people out there in the real world who are too well adjusted and who are too aware of how their kids need to be protected from the internet in ways we weren’t when we were young. Mostly because our parents had no real chance to understand and take charge on the subject.
There are definitely many young people who will end up stuck in the online vortex, who will grow up as iPad babies and be used by their parents to get online attention, but I genuinely think that is a very visible and very loud minority. Most parents today are very much aware and want to give their children their privacy.
And as for all the climate change stuff. Well, that one is harder to change. That has to be a top down decision and it has to be a general willingness among the people to give up conveniences that they refuse to give up. I think that will be up to the younger generations to make that change and I believe in them. I don’t think my generation is gonna be willing to have less, but I don’t know.
In the end, and this might piss some people off, humans have always found a way to adapt and we have always had to adapt to climate change for as long as we have existed. This climate change is one we have contributed to significantly ourselves, but we will figure it out and for the younger generations they will be adjusted to the new normal from birth. It’s not an endorsement of what’s happening. I want us to go full throttle on green energy and green everything, but all the stupid war shit is disrupting the developments a bit. Not stopping them. Just slowing them down. But we will get there eventually.
A lot of things are fucked right now and we get all the bad news at once at every minute of the day to it’s easy to fall into despair, but honestly, I think a lot of things will be balanced out eventually. It just takes time and humans are not very patient when it comes to that part of the equation. Myself included.
Yes
I happen to have an alpha. They’re only just over a year old but they’re already incredibly smart and kind. I do have my worries, but I also have high hopes that there will be a correction, at least when it comes to the youngest ones. There will always be shit people raising incredibly shit kids, but… I can hope
Gen Beta started in 2025, so they might be a Beta!
I’m less concerned about the iPad than I am about the world they’re growing up into. The wealth gap keeps getting wider, the job market has made many fields into a catch 22 where you can’t get experience if you don’t have experience, the planet is buring, and fascism is happening.
My Gen Alpha children will probably lead happy and fulfilling lives. Sure they don’t have a privileged childhood but they have food security and two loving parents which is the best predictor of future adult happiness that I know of.
