this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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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?

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[–] florge@feddit.uk 83 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

These generations are arbitary and just lead to sweeping inaccurate generalisations.

[–] angrystego@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Ok, I'll rephrase it for you:

Do you have hope that people born after 2013 will live happy and fulfilling lives?

[–] remon@ani.social 19 points 3 days ago

I sure hope not!

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I'll say probably yes, but the world will look very different for them than it did for us. There will be far fewer younger people than today on most continents besides Africa.

They'll have far more power to shape and change society than most previous generations. Boomers will be almost entirely dead when they Alphas reach adulthood. GenX would be next on the death chopping block, but GenX is far smaller. So lots of jobs will be open and Alphas and Millennials will be holding those positions with GenX mostly in retirement homes. Millennials are saddled with debt and a lack of lifetime earnings while Alphas are looking like they're skipping a good chunk of that debt burden.

Taxation on working Alphas and Millennials will be monstrous dealing yet another setback for then aging Millennials. Climate change will also wipe out lots of opportunities. Alphas I think might be the generation to finally give the finger to the generations prior that kicked the can down the road and simply let parts of society they don't care about fall away. Part of that will mean not caring for multiple generations of aging parents and grandparents where the declining birth rate means a single Alpha may have 8 to 10 aging relatives still alive and in need of some kind of support exclusively relying on the Alpha. This would mean 16 to 20 aging relatives for a married Alpha couple. There's just no way they can support that.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

you should factor in climate change and further concentration of wealth into your analysis.

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I covered both in my post. One explicit one implicit.

[–] Phoenix3875@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

I agree. It's such a Gen Generation thing to say.

[–] missingno@fedia.io 4 points 3 days ago

People born in different eras will lead very different lives. Where we choose to draw the line in order to give names to these generations is arbitrary, but the underlying concept is meaningful and we kind of have to just pick somewhere to draw those lines in order to be able to talk about it.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

These generations are arbitrary

They're not arbitrary and that's the problem...

Up to Baby Boomers a gender was defined around cultural/technological change and social events.

WW2 ending and a resulting baby boom fit that. But then capitalism wanted easy ways to categorize consumers.

So they decided every 15 years was "better" even tho it immediately led to "generations" meaning almost nothing.

"Generations" are still valuable demographics, it's just boomers never understood it and made up their own definition. We need to go back to naming and determining generations once they're adults and we already know how they're different and where to draw the line

A whole lot of our current problems are because boomers took something that worked and "disrupting it" without understanding how it works or what it even was.

[–] FinjaminPoach@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I wish they were at least evenly spaced. Alpha should be 2013 to 2028 rather than ensing in the 'mid 2020s'. Everything with a 15 year gap should be wider in line with Baby Boomers and those before them, or the baby boomers should be split into two different generations.

Also if their oldest members are 13 yo, then its way too soon for me to pass judgement onto generation alpha. A teacher, parent or healthcare worker might have some insight though

[–] pohart@programming.dev 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

As far as I can tell they're set for marketing reasons, but they actually represent meaningful epochs and how those events effected people in different stages of life.

World war, depression, postwar expansion, civil rights, cold war, internet, smartphone.

Making them all fifteen or twenty-five years doesn't make sense.

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Is this a "plans are useless but the act of planning is invaluable" kind of thing?

Like arbitrary 15 years increments is basically worthless but you end up with a collection of meaniful epochs inside of those limited frames that it has value again?

[–] pohart@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah I think so.