The Digital Tipping Point

Kids access to digital devices is a truly hot topic. From Cyberbullying to devices’ addictive nature, adults are increasingly aware of the impact of the digital world on kids and teens and grappling on how to regulate it. Over the last 18 months and with new legislation coming into play, it feels like we’ve reached the digital tipping point. To safeguard the youngest members of society the easy answer is to ban – specifically smartphones and social media access but is that the right approach? We’re not sure.  

Gen Alpha’s lives are punctuated by tech from day one. Research shows that 40% of toddlers will have a tablet by age 2 – with regular screen use.  Then smartphone gifting and ownership happens around 10-11yo as kids reach their final year of primary school and begin to step into independence.   

This may be uncomfortable to those of us who grew up deviceless, but Gen Alpha are growing up in a world hugely reliant on tech – witness the power outages and subsequent mass disruption in Portugal and Spain last week as a prime example. They are completely unaware of a screen free world. This leads to a huge conflict of interest between adults’ ideal of delaying kids access to tech with the reality of the world driving kids towards it.  

Post-pandemic, schools have adapted to WhatsApp threads for homework, AR/VR, real time collaboration, student performance dashboards and online assignments. And that’s not necessarily a negative thing. This EdTech boom has enabled self-direction and autonomy – kids are comfortable with hybrid learning spaces; using websites and digital platforms to submit homework, access lesson plans, watch content to supplement learning and engage with apps that gamify education.  

“My new teacher has told the class to play Globle, Wordle and Connections every other day.  I haven't played Connections before but it's like a word search where you find words that are related to each other.  It's not bad for homework" – Girl, 13  

But while Gen A’s comfort with platforms grows by the day, their ability to emotionally process everything they see, hear, and absorb doesn’t always keep pace. A screen free world is never going to be a reality so kids will continue to have access to damaging, fake or irresponsible content no matter if they own their own smartphone or not.  

Digital inequity isn’t addressed in the discourse either - a certain demographic drive the smartphone free childhood conversation but fail to address the online gaps. Demonising tech reinforces tech inequity and banning it assumes all kids have safe, enriching offline spaces, and many don’t.  

“Sometimes I just go online when no one’s around because that’s where stuff happens.” – Boy, 12   

So what should the future look like? We believe the old adage is true – it takes a village. The whole adult universe should come together and create a safe digital world for kids. We need to stop asking kids to adapt to an adult digital world and create a kid-first approach. We should have kids at the centre of every process in tech and create products and digital experiences for them that they are excited to use vs feeling like they’ve got an overly sanitised or watered down version. Kids need a guiding lighthouse on how to best use technology and adults need to start enabling the behaviours they want to see in the next generation.  

Our Tech Review is out now which dives deeper into the topic and shares the key attributes that make a tech brand cool for kids. And to learn more about Gen Alpha's relationship with tech contact our team, we'd love to hear from you!    

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