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Like everything in the past few years, this all started with TikTok. 

The rise in videos amongst teachers and older siblings declaring their astonishment as to how their students and younger siblings seemed almost illiterate. Many likeTiktok user @oliviapaige.22, attributing this decline in Gen Alphas intellectual abilities to social media.

Despite this popular belief, A-G counselor Josue Venezo says that the intellectual capabilities of Gen Alpha isn’t what’s the problem, it’s their attention span.

“It started with TikTok but now the quick videos are on all social media platforms with insta it’s reels, yt it’s shorts so I think that’s affected the younger generations, more than intellectual abilities, it’s affecting the attention spans,” he said.

Samantha Diaz, a sixth grade Gen Alpha student, expresses her preference for technology to learn.

“I like to work on a computer because it’s just easier to find information and you don’t have to carry as many textbooks,” Samantha said. 

But Joanna Probst, a private elementary school teacher, and a mother of two kids, one of whom is Gen Alpha, explains that while this may seem efficient, increased screen time doesn’t benefit anyone.

“Kids nowadays need a dopamine hit really quickly, so to sit and listen to a teacher talk or give a lesson is really difficult for them,” she said. “I would say 75% of our class has some sort of behavior modification, or needs constant reminders to stay on task. And I think a lot of that has to do with screen time.”

This decrease in attention span, according to Probst, is one reason why teachers are expressing their frustration or worry for their students’ success, especially online.

“This decreasing attention span has led to a trend where parents expect teachers to raise their children,” she said. “Whether it’s a bad habit that they have at home or an issue with a playdate at home, we actually took requests to intervene with time that we’re not even with them, like not even under our supervision, we get asked to help manage friendships between the children.”

This has led teachers like Probst to alter lessons, switching from typical math and english, to responsibility and manners which she believes parents are responsible for teaching.

“One of the things that we do in our classroom as a teacher is teach manners,” she said. “I teach ‘Yes, please.’, ‘No, thank you.’ because these kids, just don’t do it. I teach honesty. We teach truth telling. Sometimes I wonder if they’re getting as much of that at home.”

Van Nuys English teacher Mr. Angelino Simbulan explained that the parents who are actively helping their children and working to form connections with teachers, are the parents of the students who don’t need help.

“The parents who come to parent teacher night, or who text me, don’t need to text me,” he said. “It’s the parents who might need more help for their child to become proficient in what I’m teaching them, who never text me back.”

Probst believes that this issue will be hard to stop.

“We live in a world where everybody’s trying to make everybody happy and nobody wants to upset anybody,” she said. “Because of this, schools often will do anything to try and make everybody happy, and that’s never going to happen.”

Despite this concern, as well as concerns of screen time and its effects, Venezo claims that there is nothing that parents can do about the amount of time students and children spend on screens.

“I think the screens are here to stay forever,” he said. “I don’t think that there’s any way of reeling that back in. I’d say what we can do is lean in on the parts of tech that are good and real in the bad parts.”

In his time in education, Venezo explained the growth of social media and technology and how students have responded to that growth.

“I’ve been in education for a long time and I have noticed that social media, when it was barely coming up, used to be a thing where you could just log in and message friends here and there and share funny things,” Venezo said. “But now teenagers’ social lives are completely connected to the internet. I think it’s easy to fall into a comparison game which can lead to growing up faster and mental health issues.”

According to Venezo the main reason for this dependence and entrenchment of the internet in teenagers’ lives nowadays is that companies have figured out how to keep them engaged.

“When Gen Z was growing up there was TikTok but it was barely starting to bubble up, but now I think all of the big tech companies have figured out how to keep people’s attention,” he explained.

This is because companies have shortened videos to match peoples shrinking attention spans.

“We’re able to just zone out on our phones looking at 10-20 second videos of one minute clips for hours,” he said.

Many believe that the increase in screen time for children has led to them becoming followers, focusing more on trends than originality.

“Some trends like the devious lick trend could be really bad,” Jason Diaz, an 11-year-old Gen Alpha said. “Some trends I really like, cause they can be funny, like memes on Youtube.”

Samantha Diaz agreed, explaining that trends allow her to feel like herself.

“I like cargo pants and bubble braids because I see them on my friends at school,” she said. “Trends are important because they let me express myself.”

Probst explained this increase in technology usage has allowed for Gen Alpha to be more aware of the world and issues around them. Which can be beneficial but also detrimental to a child’s mental state.

“Younger kids are just aware of everything,” she said. “They’ve seen so many things from the internet.”

According to Mr. Simbulan Gen Alpha believes that they shouldn’t have to work hard, or work at all. This is one of the most popular things Gen Alpha finds themselves being criticized for; their inability to handle struggle.

“Students do not know how to handle stress,” he said. “Instead of allowing themselves to be stressed out, they complain about why they’re being stressed to begin with. They don’t understand that stress is a part of learning.”

Mr. Simbulan further stressed that this line of reasoning could be detrimental to a student’s success because the level of stress and pressure they are feeling now lasts beyond highschool.

“Students are given the same amount of stress in highschool that they will receive in college,” Mr. Simbulan siad. “So learning how to handle that stress in highschool makes it easier for them in college and outside of college.” 

Despite this, Mr. Simbulan understands that there are fundamental differences between Gen Alpha and older generations.

“If you look at how students are able to focus on two things at once, you can see that their ability to focus isn’t equal to the generations before,” he said. “Older people can not focus on two things at once, but gen z and alpha can. So just because students are on their phones doesn’t mean they aren’t listening, it just means it’s easier for them to focus on two things because parts of their brains can focus a lot easier if they are being used at the same time.”

Even with this observation, Mr. Venezo explains that the cycle of judgment and critique of newer generations from older ones is nothing new.

As technology advances and time passes, the human race always adapts and becomes something new. Yet we as humans are notorious for our hatred for things that are new and different prime examples being racism and homophobia. Gen alpha, like many future generations to come, are simply just different and soon, the world may come to realize this and stop criticizing the things that make them who they are.

“Every older generation looks at the generation beneath them and calls them lazy,” Venezo said. “Gen x made fun of millennials, millennials are making fun of gen z and now gen z is making fun of gen alpha. We get a little more life experience and in turn a little more critical of other people.”

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2024 print edition.