If there’s one word most associated with General Alpha right now, it might be “brainrot.”
According to countless Trend piece And Many TikToksThis generation of kids, those born between 2010 and 2024, have their brains “rotted” by scrolling too much on their devices.
“peanuts” has become a way to describe anything related to youth online culture. But it’s based on the idea, promoted largely by adults, that children 14 and under are addicted to their technology and that it has fundamentally destroyed their ability to interact in the real world.
Instead, they “The brain is a rotten snake” eg “ohio” And “Fanum Tax,” And They can’t even read Because they’re always on their iPads.
It is certainly true that today’s youth, as a group, are highly online.
65 percent of 8- to 12-year-olds own an iPhone, and the same percentage own an iPad A recent survey of tweens By market research group YPulse. (For comparison, millennials got their first smartphone at an average of 16. Long movies or shows on social platforms.
But does this mean that their brains have decayed? In scientific terms, no. Research into the effects of screens on youth development mixed upAnd there is an ongoing debate about whether smartphones and social media actually influence children So, so far, there is no hard evidence that being online is bad for young people’s mental health. And, of course, a phone or iPad can’t literally rot someone’s brain.
While talking to kids and experts, I came away with the impression that young people are also concerned about the impact of technology on their lives. Their concerns, however, are more subtle than some Destructive title can advise. And sometimes they have more perspective than adults when it comes to what a healthy relationship with technology looks like — and how it will evolve in the future.
Gen Alpha kids “see themselves as misunderstood, and the content they create, and the content they enjoy or consume is also misunderstood,” says Jess Rauchberg, a professor of communication technology at Seton Hall University who studies social media.
What General Alphas think about their use of technology
One thing General Alphas want adults to know is this They are not a monolith.
Brooklyn 11-year-old Fiona told me over hot chocolate that the amount of time she spends on her phone is “very alarming.” She’s not alone—38 percent of teens are A recent Pew study They reported spending too much time on their phones. But Fiona said her screen time is nothing compared to the behavior of her 5-year-old sister Margot, who she says is basically chained to her iPad. “It’s holding him captive,” Fiona says.
For Fiona, baby boomers are best understood not as a single generation but as a “ladder,” each rung a little more tech-obsessed than the one above. He worries about the kids below him, the younger Gen Alphas who “aren’t paying attention to the world around them.” He told me about a time when he asked his little sister for a hug, and Margot clutched her arm in confusion while continuing to look at her iPad.
Their mother told me that this might be a slight exaggeration; Who among us has not exaggerated the failings of our siblings to make a point?
But younger alphas typically aren’t online more than their elders, says Fiona. They’re more likely to use “brainrot slang” like “skiBD”, which comes from SKBD ToiletA popular web series about camera-head guys fighting toilet-head guys that is incomprehensible to adults and even older teenagers (I find it scary and apocalyptic, e.g. brazil)
Skibidi basically means everything and nothing – “You don’t really use it in sentences, you just kind of randomly say it,” said one 11-year-old. told NBC. Other Brainrot terms include “Ohio” (meaning strange), “Fan Tax” (stealing food), and “ridge” (charm or charisma).
Older alphas sometimes use this kind of language, but they’re being sarcastic, Fiona says. He recently referred to his friend as a “SkiBD Ohio Rizzler” in a text message, for example: “We use brainrot in a fun way.”
I wasn’t entirely surprised to hear that Fiona wanted to distance herself from some of the stereotypes about General Alpha. After all, who wants to be associated with iPad addiction and mental decay?
But “brainrot” culture is actually a sophisticated response to the world as Gen Alpha knows it, Rauchberg says. Today’s tweens and toddlers have spent some of their formative years in the depths of the Covid pandemic, when once-predictable routines like school and play dates were upended, and many families faced disruption and danger.
“Memes that can be really absurd and abstract and weird and surreal to older generations—that’s Gen Alpha trying to make sense and find some humor in some pretty chaotic times growing up,” Rauchberg says.
Maybe brain rot isn’t all bad
The emotional response of older people to the language and culture of the young is nothing new. When millennials were growing up, adults worried about teenagers spending too much time at the mall, Rauchberg said. Today, though, platforms like TikTok have replaced Hot Topic and Cinnabon as the “third place” where kids hang out, adults can see — and sometimes relentlessly comment on — everything happening with youngsters.
This means kids can also see their lives — or at least stereotypes about their lives — constantly turned into content. On any given day, they can see a TikTok creator having fun General Alphas in Nursing Homes (They certainly claim time on the iPad) or a Compilation of teacher complaints About their generation (they “can’t read, they can’t write, they’re barbaric”).
And adults owe Gen Alpha a little favor when we eavesdrop on their spaces, Rauchberg says. “If kids see too much TikTok making fun of their generation, they may worry that the adults in their lives are judging them too.”
Contrary to the worst stereotypes about iPad kids, today’s tweens are actually quite busy in the physical world, according to YPulse. Eighty percent have a hobby, and some play video games, while others are interested in sports or crafts. Fiona, for her part, loves the industry – her dream job is to work behind the scenes Lincoln Center one day
Their fellow Alphas also care about the world around them, with 75 percent of 8- to 12-year-olds saying they’re passionate about a cause like animal rights or cyberbullying, according to YPulse. And despite adults’ worries about them, 84 percent of tweens have positive feelings about the future.
Meanwhile, some see a potential rise in young alphas’ comfort level with their screens. Fiona thinks kids her sister’s age might be better off watching AI-generated content because they’ve been exposed to it from such a young age. Many General Alphas don’t realize a stark difference between online and offline interactions, Rauchberg says — it’s real life to them.
This may sound boring to people who grew up without smartphones, but if you’re a millennial, you might remember the days when our elders warned us that the Internet was real, and Our online profile can follow us Through college applications or job searches.
For better or worse, Alphas are native to a world the rest of us have had to adapt to.
