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 and adapt­able than oth­er generations.

Gen Alpha and Social Media

Gen Alpha kids are becom­ing pro­fi­cient with hand­held tech­nol­o­gy at younger ages than pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions, with 40% hav­ing a tablet by age 2, 58% hav­ing one by age 4 and almost one in four kids hav­ing a per­son­al cell phone by age 8. 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. Tik­Tok is anoth­er pop­u­lar plat­form among Gen Alpha, who enjoy its engag­ing, short-form videos. In fact, as of 2019–2021, more than two-thirds (68%) of social media users ages 11–12 had Tik­Tok accounts accord­ing to a 2025 study in Aca­d­e­m­ic Pedi­atrics. Although Tik­Tok and YouTube have an age min­i­mum of 13, they are still pop­u­lar with Alphas, espe­cial­ly old­er Alphas who 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 reach­ing age 12 in 2025, they are already dis­play­ing clear trends in their social media usage. Sta­tis­tics pro­vide a fuller pic­ture of their patterns:

• More than 36 mil­lion kids (ages 0–11) were reg­u­lar inter­net users in 2024, 11.6 mil­lion more than teen (ages 12–17) inter­net users.
• Near­ly two-thirds of Alphas ages 8–10 spend up to four hours a day on social media.
• An esti­mat­ed 64% of kids ages 8–12 use YouTube and Tik­Tok every day.
• More than 30% of Gen Alphas watch YouTube and YouTube Shorts over two hours daily.
• Among Alphas under age 9, time spent gam­ing jumped by 65% between 2020 to 2024, from an aver­age of 23 to 38 min­utes daily.
• Just over half (51%) of kids ages 0–8 have their own tablet or cell phone, and about one in five of these young Alphas use their mobile devices for falling asleep, meal­times or emo­tion­al regulation.

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. Giv­en that over eight in 10 par­ents of Gen Alpha say their kids use mobile devices 7–8 hours a day, there is right­ful­ly some con­cern about the result­ing neg­a­tive effects on their men­tal, social and behav­ioral devel­op­ment. There is also some con­cern about a poten­tial depen­den­cy, and even addi­tion, to social media and tech­nol­o­gy for these kids. And these wor­ries may be jus­ti­fied: A recent study of 10,000 ear­ly ado­les­cents, ages 11 to 15, found that one in four report­ed ele­ments of addic­tion in their social media use, such as using apps to for­get about their prob­lems and spend­ing a lot of time think­ing about the apps.

Accus­tomed to con­sum­ing short, flashy video con­tent across mul­ti­ple screens, data sug­gest Gen Alphas strug­gle, too, with dwin­dling atten­tion spans, show­ing dis­in­ter­est in activ­i­ties that don’t involve screens. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, short­ened atten­tion spans can affect class­room behav­ior and learn­ing reten­tion. A grow­ing body of research has rein­forced these con­cerns, link­ing ear­ly ado­les­cent social media use to behav­ioral and men­tal health issues, includ­ing ADHD, dis­rup­tive behav­ior and depression.

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 — some 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. An increas­ing share of these chil­dren are now exhibit­ing men­tal, behav­ioral or devel­op­men­tal chal­lenges, which can trans­late to future hard­ships for teach­ers and care­givers and, more impor­tant­ly, for the young peo­ple them­selves. For instance, two trou­bling statistics:

• In 2023, 16% of young Alphas ages 3 to 5 had a men­tal, emo­tion­al, devel­op­men­tal or behav­ioral prob­lem — an increase from 13% in 2018.
• Dur­ing 2016–17 to 2022–23, when the Gen Alpha demo­graph­ic spanned infants to 10-year-olds, the preva­lence of child­hood anx­i­ety or depres­sion rose from 9% to 13% among U.S. kids ages 3 to 17. 

Read more about social media and teen men­tal health.

What are oth­er impacts of Social Media on Gen Alpha?

While pos­i­tive impacts of social media use for youth have been doc­u­ment­ed, such as peer sup­port and access to infor­ma­tion, high use and unreg­u­lat­ed access may be harm­ful, espe­cial­ly for younger ages. Among ear­ly ado­les­cents, for exam­ple, research has shown that social media use is asso­ci­at­ed with poor sleep, eat­ing dis­or­ders, cyber­bul­ly­ing and ini­ti­at­ing sub­stance use, in addi­tion to the men­tal and behav­ioral health prob­lems not­ed above. These impacts do not affect all kids equal­ly — they vary by social media plat­form, youth gen­der and oth­er factors.

What do par­ents think? Accord­ing to a 2025 report, at least three in four par­ents of Alphas under age nine are wor­ried about the impact of screen media, such as: 

• Exces­sive screen time (80%) and the impact on atten­tion spans (79%)
• The amount of con­tent that is sex­u­al (76%) or vio­lent (75%)
• Effects on men­tal health (75%)
• Cyber­bul­ly­ing (74%)

At the same time, many par­ents of young Alphas acknowl­edge the poten­tial ben­e­fits of media use, with three-fourths (75%) express­ing enthu­si­asm about their chil­dren learn­ing new things from screen media. In addi­tion, more than two-thirds of par­ents val­ued oppor­tu­ni­ties for their child to dis­cov­er new inter­ests (72%), wit­ness depic­tions of pos­i­tive mes­sages such as acts of kind­ness (72%) and con­nect with friends or fam­i­ly (71%).

What Social Media Means for Gen Alpha’s Growth

The poten­tial­ly harm­ful effects of social media on Gen Alpha mer­it spe­cial atten­tion as ear­ly ado­les­cence is a vul­ner­a­ble and for­ma­tive phase of life, when young peo­ple begin under­go­ing sig­nif­i­cant brain devel­op­ment and phys­i­o­log­i­cal changes. What hap­pens dur­ing this peri­od can have last­ing con­se­quences. Fur­ther, as youth expe­ri­ence these devel­op­men­tal tran­si­tions, they are con­cur­rent­ly form­ing their sense of self, increas­ing inde­pen­dence and build­ing rela­tion­ships and life skills. Young peo­ple need strong, car­ing sup­port from adults, schools and oth­er sources to effec­tive­ly man­age this phase and start on a pos­i­tive path into adulthood.

As Gen Alphas get old­er, they will also 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 social media to pro­tect their chil­dren’s men­tal health and social devel­op­ment. Addi­tion­al­ly, par­ents and oth­er adults in school and com­mu­ni­ty set­tings can proac­tive­ly pro­vide guid­ance and sup­port to Gen Alpha to help them learn how to devel­op healthy dig­i­tal and social media habits. Experts sug­gest focus­ing more on help­ing adults cre­ate pos­i­tive envi­ron­ments that facil­i­tate children’s social-emo­tion­al learn­ing when using technology.

Prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tions on how to pre­vent and address the neg­a­tive impacts of social media on kids: 

• The Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Pedi­atrics sug­gests cre­at­ing a Fam­i­ly Media Plan that can be cus­tomized for each family’s unique needs.
• The Casey Foun­da­tion pro­vides a curat­ed set of tips on inter­net safe­ty for kids.

Gen­er­a­tion Alpha will grap­ple with both the advan­tages and pit­falls of a ful­ly dig­i­tal world as they enter ado­les­cence and adult­hood. Armed with unique per­spec­tives and life expe­ri­ences — and hope­ful­ly ade­quate sup­port from adults and access to the resources they need to thrive — Gen Alpha will make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions in every domain of life.

Want to Learn More?

Access infor­ma­tion about Gen Alpha and oth­er gen­er­a­tions from the Casey Foundation:

• Gen Alpha Resource Page
• Inter­net Safe­ty for Kids 
• Social Media’s Con­cern­ing Effect on Teen Men­tal Health
• What the Sta­tis­tics Say about Gen­er­a­tion Z

KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter indi­ca­tors on Gen Alpha and oth­er generations:

• Pop­u­la­tion size of Gen Alpha, Gen Z, mil­len­ni­als, Gen X and baby boomers, by race and ethnicity
• Peo­ple liv­ing in pover­ty by generation
• Peo­ple liv­ing in pover­ty by gen­er­a­tion and race and ethnicity
• Peo­ple liv­ing in low-income house­holds by generation 
• Peo­ple liv­ing in low-income house­holds by gen­er­a­tion and race and ethnicity 

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