Generation Alpha

Generation Alpha: Q&A with Ashley Fell

How do you define Generation Alpha?

The launch of the iPad in 2010 coincided with the beginning of our current generation of children, Generation Alpha. There are now 2.5 million Gen Alphas being born around the globe each week.

We named them ‘Generation Alpha’ to signify not just a new generation, but a generation that will be shaped by an entirely different world. That is why we moved to the Greek alphabet, to signify this different generation that will be raised in a new world of technological integration.

How will Gen Alpha’s experience of technology differ from Gen Y and Z?

Gen Alpha were born into a world of iPhones (in fact the Oxford English Dictionaries word of the year in 2010 when they were first born was “app”), YouTube (where there are now 100 hours of videos uploaded every minute), and Instagram (where life is photographed and shared instantly and globally).

While Gen Y and Z are very tech-savvy and digitally connected, Gen Alpha will be the first entire generation to have technology seamlessly integrated into their lives. Gen Y and certainly some of the older Gen Zed’s will remember a time before iPhones and social media, whereas for all Generation Alpha’s these devices will be a part of their upbringing from a very early age.

What advantages will Gen Alpha’s technological literacy give them compared with the older generations?

Gen Alpha babies will grow up to be smarter, richer, and healthier and will obtain the highest level of formal education in history.

Because their parents will indulge them in more formal education and at an earlier age, Gen Alpha will have access to more information than any other generation. Their formal education has never been equalled in the history of the world, with a predicted 1 in 2 Gen Alphas to obtain a university degree.

As a result of seamlessly integrating technology and devices into their lives from such a young age, Generation Alpha will have a better foundation to build their technological literacy.

What technologies shape the lives of Gen Alpha?

Technology has and will continue to change how we, and Generation Alpha communicate. It’s a world of ‘Screenagers’ where not only do they multi-screen and multi-task, but glass has become the new medium for content dissemination. Unlike the medium of paper, it is kinaesthetic, visual, interactive, connective and still portable.

Glass was something that Gen Y’s were told to look through and keep their fingers off. For Gen Alpha, glass is a medium they touch, talk, and look at.

Gen Alpha truly are the ‘millennial generation’, born and shaped fully in the 21st century, and the first generation (in record numbers) who will welcome the 22nd century.

Gen Alphas are logged on and linked up, digital natives. They are the most materially endowed and technologically literate generation to ever grace the planet!