As Generation Alpha ends and Generation Beta begins, one must consider what the upcoming generation’s childhood will look like. The way Gen Alpha children have grown up is staggeringly different from generations prior, as their development and behavior have been incredibly affected by their exposure to screens and the internet starting from infancy. While many like to blame “COVID-19,” which obviously had a significant role, the pandemic can’t be the sole event held responsible for Generation Alpha’s stunted development.

Childhood screen use has been an issue since before 2020. A study found that from 2011 to 2013, mobile device use increased from 10 percent to 38 percent for children under 2 years old, 39 percent to 80 percent for children aged 2 to 4 and 52 percent to 83 percent for children aged 5 to 8. Children have access to technology younger and younger and the consequences have been all but positive; they are declining academically, socially, behaviorally and mentally. Anxiety and depression are higher than ever because online, everything is embarrassing and everyone is watching you.

Adults struggle with phone addiction and comparing themselves to people on social media, so how can we expect children to handle having the whole internet at their fingertips?

The overuse of technology in children is deeply reflected in behavior and performance in school. From kindergarten to high school, new and veteran teachers alike have expressed frustration with young Gen Z and Gen Alpha students.

Teachers are disheartened by the attitude of students and their parents. Reddit user TheDarklingThrush expressed that they’ve been a sixth grade teacher for over a decade and that students have become apathetic and addicted to technology and that parents don’t care about these changes, claiming that parents and children alike are “looking for easy answers that don’t involve any effort or work on their part.” It’s not fair to blame young students for their behavior if the behavior is reinforced at home by parents who don’t want to hold them to any standards.

School should be a break from screens in a tech-dominated society. Computer labs have been replaced by school-issued laptops or tablets for all students — a change that wasn’t necessary. I can understand that schools want to prepare students to enter our digital world and there are benefits to technology use in education, like doing research, learning to use computer programs or learning to code, but not all day, every day.

Having specific intentions when implementing technology use is important to make it more engaging and effective for students. Using it for everything depreciates its value and makes it hard for students to stay focused. A kindergartener who is supposed to be learning counting and phonics doesn’t need to spend the school day tapping a screen. It’s not that these kids are unintelligent or lazy, but doing assignments, especially hands-on or paper assignments, don’t feel worth doing because there isn’t an instant reward like the kind that comes from using a screen.

Screen use in children also kills creativity. Gen Alpha has been sucked into a screen addiction before they could even form their own thoughts. The constant triggering of dopamine in children from technology has given them an inability to be bored or to entertain themselves. Parents will give their 3-year-old child their sticky tablet for a five-minute car ride, let them loudly watch videos off their phone in the doctor’s office waiting room and stick them in front of overstimulating cartoons for hours at a time. The quick-fix to get children to be quiet ultimately turns them into unsociable, helpless and impatient zombies.

We do need to consider that parents are busy. In two-thirds of American families with children under 18 and married parents, both parents work and the burden only increases for single-parent families. As someone coming from a family with five children — three of my siblings being a part of Gen Alpha — and two working parents, I know it’s not always realistic to cut out screens entirely. Child care can be expensive and inaccessible, work can be demanding and a parent can’t be in two places at once.

My intention is not to shame busy and overworked parents trying to keep their kids happy and cared for, but there must be a middle ground between never using screens and totally relying on them. A parent may need to put their child in front of a TV while they get a few things done, but they can choose to put on educational content rather than saturated, mind-numbing content. It’s crucial to put limits on screen time and restrict certain content, because kids’ attention spans are fried, they speak in brain rot and they are inevitably being exposed to inappropriate content. Overexposure to screens is linked to irritability, outbursts, attention issues and anxiety, and using screens as a short-term fix makes these symptoms make parenting more challenging in the future.

It shouldn’t be standard for kids to be watching YouTube at volume 10 and disturbing the general peace at every restaurant. Using technology as a pacifier makes for kids who have no attention span or patience. The contrast between children with strict screen time rules and kids who spend hours a day buried in a device is like night and day — abilities in speech, awareness and sociability are opposite and it’s clear from just a short interaction.

Many parents worry that restricting screen use will harm their kids as adults, because they will be behind in their technology skills if all other children are constantly using it. In reality, technology is intuitive to children and they don’t need training to use it, so they won’t be at a disadvantage compared to their peers. Rather, not using technology allows children to develop creativity and imagination, which can be applied to create technology rather than just use it.

We as a society can’t complain that kids no longer have hobbies, can’t read or write a coherent sentence without artificial intelligence, if we are going to keep drowning them in technology. Most people acknowledge that screen use has been detrimental to children and don’t want the same for the next generation; it’s just a matter of whether we can make the change.

If schools and families jointly take the precautions needed to decrease time spent in front of screens, this generation can develop a much healthier relationship with technology and learn to treat it as a resource rather than like the air they breathe.

Riley Lavrovsky is a junior majoring in psychology.

Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.