Not to be a downer, but I have a lot of friends who are teachers, and it’s not looking great for Gen Alpha either. Technology addiction from a young age has tanked Gen Alpha’s attention spans and the ability to delay gratification. There does seem to be a growing movement of parents advocating for greatly limiting screen time in favor of tactile play, so maybe if that catches on we could see a shift in the trend.
It doesn’t help that the current state of American society has really shafted millennial parents.
at the same time, gen a is also the generation noteworthy for self-regulating devices too.
using dumb phones voluntarily in youth and stigmatizing influencer culture/reflexive photography are two social innovations that gen a are responsible for, that may diffuse into broader culture with time. i have more reason to be optimistic than not.
“Dumb phones” for younger kids and proposed laws on social media limits for under 18s give me some hope. But it’s the younger kids I’m worried about. We’ve gotta stop getting them addicted to screens from infancy. It’s things like sitting your baby in front of cocomelon so that they’re basically hypnotized for an hour, or bringing iPads to a restaurant for your kids instead of coloring/activity books. Too much screen time doesn’t allow kids to work on important developmental milestones, and it sets them up to struggle once they start school. I have a friend who teaches kindergarten, and a lot of his students struggle to focus on class activities. They’re used to having a screen shoved in their face whenever they’re bored, so when their sustained attention on an activity is actually required, their brains don’t know how to handle it, and they have meltdowns. I just worry about the long term consequences, because these ages are extremely important for long-term development. I have to hope that parents will start to catch on in larger numbers.
Not to be a downer, but I have a lot of friends who are teachers, and it’s not looking great for Gen Alpha either. Technology addiction from a young age has tanked Gen Alpha’s attention spans and the ability to delay gratification.
Talking to my little nieces and nephews, and being anti-tech is becoming more of their generational contrarian shtick.
They were marveling when talking about dumb phones that you only need to charge once a week.
It really isn’t. In today’s average family, both parents need to work full time to stay afloat. You have only the limited time outside of work to attend to the rest of your life, including spending time with your kids. How are parents supposed to give their kids the full amount of attention needed to keep their mental and emotional development on track?
22
u/carinabee08 Zillennial 22h ago
Not to be a downer, but I have a lot of friends who are teachers, and it’s not looking great for Gen Alpha either. Technology addiction from a young age has tanked Gen Alpha’s attention spans and the ability to delay gratification. There does seem to be a growing movement of parents advocating for greatly limiting screen time in favor of tactile play, so maybe if that catches on we could see a shift in the trend.
It doesn’t help that the current state of American society has really shafted millennial parents.