The Absurd Pirate's Internet Blog asks, is gen alpha screwed?:
However, I do think there is a STARK contrast between a curated show from the 90s-00s and a show like Cocomelon that is designed to be like heroin for babies. I walked in on my MIL and daughter watching Cocomelon together one time, and it was jarring seeing how, for one, low effort the animation and songs are, and two, how stimulating this show is, between the incredibly saturated colors to the jump cuts every second. What I learned was that this show uses focus groups of children to make it so there is not a break in the concentration. If a kid shifts his eyes away from the screen, the scene gets edited to address that.
Companies are literally designing everything for addiction these days. Trying to get you hooked on whatever they can profit off of as early in your development as possible.
The points raised there are discussed further by Andre Franca. He adds,
The author also mentions the "mental death" of parenting under modern life, and I totally get that. There are days when I'm so drained that a screen feels like a life raft, so the comparison of high-stimulant shows to "baby heroin" makes total sense to me. That crap is bad enough for an adult; for a child, it can be devastating. I've watched my oldest son's behavior shift in real-time depending on what he's consuming. When it's junk, he turns into different person - more reactive, less patient. It makes me realize that parenting today is largely about shielding them from a culture that wants to outsource their development to an algorithm.
What happens when a substantial portion of a whole generation achieves an age of majority with an nearly complete substitution of life experience for exposure to mindless digital heroin?
Previously:
(2025) Ban Social Media for Under 15s, Says French Report Warning of TikTok Dangers
(2025) Social Media Is Dead – Here's What Comes Next
(2015) Kids These Days: Six or Seven Nicknamed Generations
Related Stories
Business Insider has a pair of articles about generation nicknames in the USA and the rest of the First World, and (conversely) nicknamed generations. The first discusses a Goldman Sachs report that attempts to characterize the members of "Generation Z". If you're a bit challenged as far as remembering exactly what age groups these nicknames refer to, the piece has an excellent chart breaking out the generations by age, and then by population count (in the USA). Details of Goldman's Gen Z portrait are sketchy, but it seems that one point is that GS previously seemed fascinated by the Millenials, the generation that came before Gen Z.
The second article is a proposal by demographer Mark McCrindle for the nickname of the new generation, whose early members are being born as you read this.
Coincidentally, TIME is running a story on how the generation nicknames came about; I was surprised to see longtime NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw being credited with coming up with the 'Greatest Generation' moniker. An older article (from googling) covers similar ground.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
One of the not-funny ironies of the 21st century has been that everything we thought was social media is actually just mass media, except it’s terrible and broken. Luckily, journalists and creators are finally figuring out how to leave the old media models behind and enter the future.
The term “mass media” became popular in the 1920s to describe pop culture in the age of industrial production. Mass-produced books, movies and radio shows created a paradigm for audiences where thousands or even millions of people could experience the same exact piece of media at the same time. Before the 20th century, most people experienced their entertainment live, in theatres, bars and concert halls, where the performance was always slightly different. But a movie or radio show was the same for everyone, no matter when or where you experienced it. You could buy standardised media products for the masses, just like shoes or cars.
Social media didn’t change this formula. Platforms such as X, Facebook and TikTok were made for mass consumption. Every post, video and livestream is a product aimed at the broadest possible audience. Yes, you can target your media at certain demographics if you like, or create filter bubbles. But the whole reason why follower counts matter is because we are still in a mass media mindset, looking to see who can deliver content to the largest number of people. That isn’t “social” anything. It’s mass production under a different name.
Ban social media for under 15s, says French report warning of TikTok dangers:
French children under 15 should be banned from social media and there should be an overnight "digital curfew" for 15-18 year olds, a parliamentary commission has recommended.
The six-month inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors has found that the short video-sharing platform "knowingly exposes our children, our young people to toxic, dangerous and addictive content".
"We must force TikTok to rethink its model," says the commission, which heard testimony from teenagers and the families of young victims.
TikTok responded saying it categorically rejected the commission's "misleading characterisation of our platform" which sought to "scapegoat our company on industry-wide and societal challenges".
"TikTok has an ongoing robust trust and safety programme with more than 70 features and settings designed specifically to support the safety and well-being of teens and families on our platform," a spokesperson said in a statement.
The company's measures have however failed to impress the French cross-party commission of inquiry, which describes TikTok as one of the worst social media platforms - "a production line of distress" for young people. It argues Tiktok it has failed to take sufficient action to reduce teenagers being exposed to "a spiral of harmful content".
The recommendations of the French parliamentary inquiry come hard on the heels of an Australian social media ban for children under the age of 16 which comes into force on 10 December. "Age‐restricted social media platforms" such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube will face steep fines if they fail to take "reasonable steps"to bar under-16s from holding accounts.
[...] Among the 43 recommendations of the French inquiry team aimed at getting French children "out of the TikTok trap" are:
a ban on social media for under-15s
no use of the apps overnight from 22:00-08:00 to prevent overnight scrolling
a ban on mobile phones in school
and, in the coming years, a crime of digital negligence for parents who fail to protect their children.
Lead inquiry author Laure Miller explained that the idea of an offence for parents of digital negligence was really just an extension of existing law.
"If a six-year-old child spends seven hours a day in front of TikTok, we can ask ourselves the question: 'are their safety and morality really protected by their parents?'," she told reporters.
France is among several EU countries pushing to limit children's use of social media. Denmark is also considering a social media ban for under-15s and Spain's government has sent to parliament a draft law for under-16s to require their legal guardians to authorise access.
Blogger Ben Werdmuller has discussed an article in Nature about the political impact of the algorithm(s) used by X (formerly known as Twitter). The gist is that the use of the algorithms against X's users tends to shift about 5% of them in a specific direction. That's more than enough to tip an election one way or another especially since the damage seems persistent and lasts even after exposure ceases.
Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.
It should be added that the effect has already been seen in multiple countries. For example, the elections in Turkey were affected with outright censorship, within X. And the impact from the CPP's Bytedance's Tiktok is likely even more severe, not to mention multiple experiments in manipulation in Meta's properties like Facebook.
Journal Reference: Gauthier, G., Hodler, R., Widmer, P. et al. The political effects of X's feed algorithm. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2
Previously:
(2026) How Screwed is Generation Alpha, and the Generations Which Will Depend on Them?
(2025) European Union Orders X to Hand Over Algorithm Documents
(2024) Six Months Ago NPR Left Twitter. The Effects Have Been Negligible
(2023) Utah Sues Tiktok For Getting Children 'Addicted' To Its Algorithm
(2022) Leaked Documents Reveal Instagram Was Pushing Girls Towards Content That Harmed Mental Health
(2022) Musk Buying Twitter Is Not About Freedom of Speech
... and more
(Score: 2) by crm114 on Sunday January 18, @08:25PM
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1830-1860/china-1 [state.gov]
To the OP - This might be an exception to Betteridge's law... The answer might be "We have no idea how screwed they are."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Sunday January 18, @09:02PM (6 children)
They're screwed anyways.
How many adults that are helicoptering their kids to safety at school after the kid is suspended for hitting another kid ("Wasn't muh kid that did the hitting. You always blame muh kid but it never him!") can grow a vegetable?
How many of those adults or their kids can grow a field of crops to survive. Or raise animals? Or build a smelter? Build a proper, warm home with fireplace? Or do ANYTHING? (How many can't even tie their own shoes properly for fecks sake?)
But they can scroll! And scroll... and scroll....
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Sunday January 18, @10:11PM (1 child)
They're good enough consumers as long as they can prompt their AI and vote for basic income.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday January 18, @11:03PM
Or maybe the other way around [youtu.be]. From "Universal Basic Guys", predicated on the main character getting a month's worth of UBI and how his family's life goes from there.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Monday January 19, @09:19AM (2 children)
And so was it always, but in different ways. Still plenty of folks who are throwing kids off mountains.
E.g. in the UK there is a big Forest School movement where (primary i.e. 5-11 year old) kids are encouraged to go get muddy in the local woods as part of their regular schooling. Scouts and Guides exists and is still quite popular (despite literally throwing kids off mountains). Etc.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, @11:16AM (1 child)
> Still plenty of folks who are throwing kids off mountains.
I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday January 19, @06:33PM
https://www.northwalespioneer.co.uk/news/24043925.great-orme-walk-led-scouts-death-grossest-possible-failure/ [northwalespioneer.co.uk]
"Jumpers for goal posts."
"Never did us any harm."
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Tuesday January 20, @07:21AM
They are growing vegetables aren't they?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, @12:54AM (2 children)
While the general situation looks pretty grim, not all is lost. The early "gen alphas" are college age now and thousands of them (around the world) are involved in Formula SAE / Formula Student, teaching themselves how to build small race cars. They wind up with real design/build/project-management experience and are sought out by a variety of companies,
https://www.sae.org/news/blog/history-formula-sae [sae.org]
I've attended their competitions and the level of enthusiasm and involvement is intense, there is no doom scrolling in sight.
There must be other activities for teens/college age that are equally engrossing/attractive & educational -- anyone??
(Score: 4, Interesting) by anubi on Monday January 19, @06:53AM (1 child)
I am considering too this generation has grown up with the internet, just I was fortunate to have a dad who bought me a set of encyclopedia. The internet is so much more than what I had, yet even the internet is paling in comparison to what I am seeing chatGPT and Claude turning out to be. It sure would have been nice to have had this when I was a kid!
These things today's kids have - that I missed out on - that I think would have the greatest impact on me :
1.) My IMSAI 8080
2.) + My WIN7 machine with its software
3.) The Internet
4.) + Chat GPT5 / Claude
I think the new kids have fantastic opportunities that I did not get, resulting in a lot childhood boredom; wasted time and opportunity.
I don't see any fault in today's kids. However, I have much to complain about regarding how much crap we are doing to kids trying to convert them to obedioids and the greed of a system centered on what can be purchased rather than what can be made and the pride of creating ones own dreams.
I see enshittification as enemy number one as we try to preserve obsolete metrics of self-worth. Between this generation of kids, AI, and ability to manufacture damn near anything. Human creativity, compassion, and freely sharing our creations. Not to say we will do things we don't want to do for free. But if someone "cheats" and created a workaround, others are free to learn from that, and make/share their own fork of the "cheat". This is not cheating anyway, I think this is what we are ultimately inspired to do. Every one of us. Designing and building whatever strikes out fancy.
If there's anything that people don't wanna do, someone will design a machine to do it. I see the day coming that will let me design and construct my own electric van, exactly what I want. If someone else likes it, just ask me nicely for a copy of it's design file set, make any changes you like, and that one is yours
Being humans, each of us have different things we like to do. Hopefully there will always be people who love creation for the pure joy of making things, whether it be gadgets, music, art, residences, tasty things, entertainment, anything, just for the joy of doing it.
We already spend way too much time chasing likes on social media. It's our nature. It's our nature to enjoy doing things for others, but we don't like being manipulated. That is very obvious with the Hollywood crowd. Everyone has their mannerisms, constantly building off each other, and sharing theirs.
I want to be freed of the tedium of construction much like computers have freed me from the tedium of arithmetic.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Monday January 19, @10:49AM
I think you are mistaken here. Opportunities open up when focused interest develops. This to happen is very difficult for the current generation (keep them away from the phone/tablet). Some boredom seems natural but you should have read books and should have had some technical "toys" (real gadgets) to tinker with or should have been outside exploring nature.. I read books hours on end, day after day. When I discovered computers, all boredom that might have still been around was gone.
In terms of opportunities, I believe that the 80s were a sweet spot.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Monday January 19, @01:11AM (1 child)
Slashing science budgets, letting Putin and Xi grab whatever they want wink wink, destroying trade relations with the rest of the world, abandoning NATO, and in general teaching the world the USA is not to be trusted.
What will really screw gen Alpha? If the world quits using the dollar as the de facto currency, or even quits buying our debt. Both of which I see happening in the fairly near future (5-10 years).
Trump's Grave will be the world's most popular open air toilet.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ChrisMaple on Monday January 19, @06:59AM
Excepting only military academies, the federal government should keep out of education: such education should be under the control and financing of states, cities, organizations both public and private, and individuals. That way indoctrination of the whole country by whoever's in charge of the country at the moment becomes much more difficult.
If you don't want Trump controlling what your first-grader is taught, make it impossible for federal policies to influence schools by ending federal funding of education. If you don't want a Clinton or Biden fondling your daughter, keep the federal government out of her education.
(Score: 3, Touché) by ikanreed on Monday January 19, @02:10AM (4 children)
Unless we start a nuclear war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, @04:46AM (3 children)
I thought Chinese gen alpha was wildly out of balance, with many more males than females? Or was that a generation earlier??
(Score: 3, Informative) by ikanreed on Monday January 19, @05:25AM (2 children)
Yeah no, that's a generation off. The end of one child for all but the biggest cities was 2007.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19, @08:16PM (1 child)
Perhaps off a generation, but China is now losing population, the BBC just posted this: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79r7v7qr53o [bbc.com]
Will we see China seeking immigration any time soon? Unlike the USA (historically), I don't see the Chinese as very accepting of "others".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20, @08:54AM
It's not a big problem for China. Once the AIs and robots produce enough of the wealth, the humans who are good at breeding and raising kids can breed even more[1]. Then evolution will just take its course.
After all in China if the Government took some or a lot of the robot created wealth and gave it to the people, their people would praise it as Communist or Socialist.
In contrast if the US Government tried to do something similar, millions of US people will protest it as Communist/Socialist or even Theft. They don't even want the poor to get free/subsidized healthcare.
The US has millions of people going: Taxation is Theft, Basic Income is Slavery, etc. So the US is more likely to head towards a Robocop or similar sci-fi dystopia where the Corporations own and control almost everything.
In contrast China might be one of those sci-fi dystopias where on the surface it seems like a utopia for most but there's a dystopia behind the scenes for those who don't "behave properly"...
[1] Might be a good idea to have a quota for how many children you can have, for those who opt to be on Basic Income or other State support. And allow people to donate their children quota to others, subject to some oversight. e.g. if you think someone is doing a fantastic job of producing/raising great kids, you might apply to give them your quota so they can produce and/or raise even more kids. Of course there are ways this can go badly wrong...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MrGuy on Monday January 19, @04:34AM (3 children)
While I realize the trend these days is to assume everything has never been done before, Sesame Street has been using sociological research since 1969. Including “the distractor” - a test for whether a given a scene was able to sustain childrens’ attention (and rework it if not)
If that’s digital heroin, Gen Alpha’s grandparents were mainlining the stuff long ago, and the world didn’t collapse on itself.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Monday January 19, @08:31AM
The other day I saw some adults hand their toddler a smartphone blasting loud noises which they then silenced by apparently connecting ear buds to it and then plugging the ear buds into the kid. He went limp as a boned fish in his seat. He looked comatose except for his eyes being locked on the screen and the one thumb occasionally touching it. I see incidents like that any time I am out in town, some less extreme, some more extreme.
That's not the same as the original Sesame Street, not by a long shot. Sesame Street may have been distracting but it was certainly not destructive. (Haven't seen it under its new owners though, that may have changed.) Through now ubiquitous, intentionally addictive interfaces, we are seeing is the utter destruction of the ability of 1+ generations to gain even basic function as humans. Even those that gain some level of independence and functionality end up being culturally alien, having been programmed by the CCP most of their waking hours to different values, mores, and folkways. The result has been that, ultimately, while they may speak a dialect of our language(s), culturally they are from Tiktokistan or wherever but certainly not local. It's on purpose, and CBS 60 Minutes covered that a long time ago making the analogy of spinach Tiktok vs opium Tiktok.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 2, Funny) by anubi on Monday January 19, @11:54PM (1 child)
I think the idea is to "amp up" the learning gain.
Bored minds are not learning *anything*.
From what I see, the educators are learning to get the rocks out of the cereal before serving it as food.
My cereal had a lot of rocks in it. I remember them well. Sitting in a classroom, bored as hell, my mind occupied with things like how to emit the loudest fart possible.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20, @04:03AM
> Sitting in a classroom, bored as hell, ...
One of my best high school teachers put the homework on the board at the start of class. If you were up on the material, you could work on the homework during class (while keeping one ear on the lecture), and not have to take it home--a big bonus for me because I had lots of interesting things going on at home by then.