The Impact of Social Media and Technology on Gen Alpha

Who Is Gen Alpha?

Born from 2013 to the present*, Gen­er­a­tion Alpha is the first gen­er­a­tion to be born entire­ly in the 21^st cen­tu­ry. They have grown up in a ful­ly dig­i­tal world, sur­round­ed by tech­nol­o­gy from a very young age. This has had a pro­found impact on their devel­op­ment, as Gen Alpha and tech­nol­o­gy are vir­tu­al­ly insep­a­ra­ble. They are more dig­i­tal­ly savvy as well as being more diverse, adapt­able and entre­pre­neur­ial than oth­er generations.

Gen Alpha and Social Media

Gen Alpha kids are becom­ing pro­fi­cient with hand­held tech­nol­o­gy at younger ages than pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions, with 43% hav­ing a tablet before age 6 and 58% hav­ing a smart­phone before the age of 10. As a result, they are engag­ing with social media ear­ly on in their devel­op­ment and exhibit­ing pref­er­ences for cer­tain apps and platforms. 

A study of Gen Alpha’s social media usage shows that they favor apps that fea­ture short, atten­tion-grab­bing con­tent. YouTube is the most pop­u­lar video app for Gen Alpha kids, who spend an aver­age of 84 min­utes a day on the plat­form — con­sum­ing a vast array of enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­ming. Addi­tion­al­ly, Gen Alpha kids rely on apps like YouTube to intro­duce them to new brands and prod­ucts, unlike Gen Z who pri­mar­i­ly uti­lize tra­di­tion­al social media for this purpose.

Tik­Tok is anoth­er pop­u­lar plat­form among Gen Alpha, who enjoy its engag­ing, short-form videos. In fact, as of 2019, almost half of dai­ly Tik­Tok users were age 14 or younger, accord­ing to a New York Times arti­cle. Because Tik­Tok has an age min­i­mum of 13, it’s more pop­u­lar with old­er Alphas, although younger Alphas find ways to cir­cum­vent the age restrictions.

Gen Alpha’s reg­u­lar con­sump­tion of video con­tent fos­ters a sense of trust and admi­ra­tion for con­tent cre­ators and social media influ­encers. In fact — when it comes to prod­uct rec­om­men­da­tions — almost half of Gen Alphas say that they trust their favorite influ­encers as much as their own fam­i­ly mem­bers. Gen Alpha is also increas­ing­ly turn­ing to social media instead of search engines to meet their infor­ma­tion needs. 

Gen Alpha’s social media usage also reflects a pen­chant for gam­ing. Roblox, in par­tic­u­lar, is a pop­u­lar plat­form that allows Gen Alphas to cre­ate vir­tu­al worlds while inter­act­ing with oth­er users.

Sta­tis­tics on Gen Alpha Social Media Usage 

With the old­est Gen Alphas in their ear­ly teens, they are already dis­play­ing clear trends in their social media usage. Sta­tis­tics pro­vide a fuller pic­ture of their patterns:

• More than 36 mil­lion chil­dren (ages 0–11) are active inter­net users, exceed­ing teen (ages 12–17) inter­net users by 11.6 million.
• Six­ty-five per­cent of Alphas ages 8–10 spend up to four hours a day on social media.
• In 2024, 44% of Gen Alphas report­ed using Tik­Tok, out­pac­ing their con­sump­tion of tra­di­tion­al tele­vi­sion (39%).
• More than 30% of Gen Alphas watch YouTube and YouTube Shorts more than two hours daily.
• Two-thirds of 6–8‑year-olds search for Roblox videos on the plat­form at least weekly.

Is Gen Alpha Addict­ed to Technology?

Hav­ing grown up in a ful­ly dig­i­tal world, Gen­er­a­tion Alpha’s devel­op­ment and mat­u­ra­tion will undoubt­ed­ly be informed by the ubiq­ui­ty of mobile devices and social media. There is right­ful­ly some con­cern about the result­ing neg­a­tive effects on their men­tal, emo­tion­al and behav­ioral devel­op­ment. There is even some con­cern about a poten­tial depen­den­cy, or even addic­tion, to social media and tech­nol­o­gy for these kids.

Accus­tomed to con­sum­ing short, flashy video con­tent across mul­ti­ple screens, data sug­gest Gen Alphas strug­gle with dwin­dling atten­tion spans, show­ing dis­in­ter­est in activ­i­ties that don’t involve screens. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, short­ened atten­tion spans can affect class­room behav­ior and learn­ing retention.

While it’s dif­fi­cult to draw con­clu­sions about Gen Alpha’s men­tal and social well-being — with many mem­bers of the gen­er­a­tion still in dia­pers — kids born dur­ing or around the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic are already show­ing delays in social and emo­tion­al devel­op­ment. A child’s ear­li­est years, from birth to age 5, are crit­i­cal to estab­lish­ing healthy social and emo­tion­al behav­iors. How­ev­er, COVID lock­downs pre­vent­ed such social­iza­tion, result­ing in increased time on screens, even for the youngest Alphas. Many of these chil­dren are now exhibit­ing delays in their inter­per­son­al and social well-being, which will pose future chal­lenges to teach­ers and caregivers.

What Social Media Means for Gen Alpha’s Growth

As Gen Alphas get old­er, they will have to nav­i­gate the pros and cons of being the most tech­no­log­i­cal­ly savvy gen­er­a­tion ever. Edu­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy and remote learn­ing will allow them to see and explore the world dif­fer­ent­ly, with vir­tu­al­ly unlim­it­ed infor­ma­tion at their fin­ger­tips. How­ev­er, par­ents will need to set bound­aries on screen time and Gen Alpha and social media to pro­tect their chil­dren’s men­tal health and social development.

Because of the grow­ing impact of tech­nol­o­gy on our plan­et, Gen Alphas are more like­ly to achieve edu­ca­tion­al goals. They will grap­ple with both the advan­tages and pit­falls of a ful­ly dig­i­tal world. Nonethe­less, Gen Alpha, armed with unique per­spec­tives and life expe­ri­ences, will make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in every domain of life.

*Note: Def­i­n­i­tions of gen­er­a­tional years can vary depend­ing on the source and con­text. Gen­er­a­tions are often defined based on shared cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic and social expe­ri­ences rather than strict chrono­log­i­cal bound­aries. Con­se­quent­ly, the start and end years for gen­er­a­tions may dif­fer slight­ly between researchers, demog­ra­phers and pop­u­lar media.