Babysitter Shares Why Gen Alpha Is A "Nightmare Generation"

There is no denying that parenting is a pretty hard job. Indeed, it’s so important and time consuming that most nations literally ensure mothers can take time off work to raise their children. However, some parents get a bit lazy and end up relying on digital crutches.

Content creator Andra Berghoff went viral after sharing the many difficulties of working with so-called “iPad Kids”. For those who are unfamiliar, this refers to the pretty controversial trend of people just giving their children a tablet in lieu of actually parenting them. Comments were mixed, some seeing the risks, others thinking it was overblow.

If you are not familiar with the idea of an iPad kid, first and foremost, congratulations, here is a primer. No, it’s not just a kid who happens to have an iPad, it’s a child that has been practically raised by an iPad, like if Tarzan had been abandoned in an Apple factory. In short, these are kids who watch videos and play mobile games for hours every single day.

Remember, the iPad has been around for fifteen years now, it’s older than many of the kids Andra Berghoff is talking about in this video. Importantly, the iPad gets the lion’s share of the blame, but this effect can come from smartphone use as well, after all, the screen of an average iPhone these days is sufficiently large to fully capture the attention of a toddler.

By the early 2010s, some researchers estimated that roughly 40% of young children already had easy access to digital media. No doubt many parents of the time found a tablet or smartphone to be a good alternative to a more expensive and “dangerous” computer and there was content galore to keep their kids entertained. By the mid 2010s, this number had jumped to 72% in the US, although, importantly, the linked study was not measuring screentime but just access to screens.

Since this is more of an emerging trend, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what the results of “iPad parenting” might be, but so far the effects seem bleak. One 2023 study conducted in Japan found that children with relatively unfiltered and uncontrolled access to screens were generally behind their peers in communication and social skills. Remember, kids at this age are often not even literate, so communication and social skills are basically the only things they have. This would explain why teaching them can be a challenge for teachers trained to work with previous generations.

This lends some credence to the admittedly anecdotal evidence presented by Andra Berghoff. These kids have had their brains fried by unlimited access to “content” and stimulation, which has purged any need for creativity and thinking. It’s also important to note that screen addiction is a very real and very scary thing. After all, if it can hijack the mind of an adult, it can absolutely do the same for a child.

There have already been cases of people noticing children (and sometimes adults) just glued to their screens in public places, or perhaps listening to something out loud on public transport, a truly unforgivable crime. Ultimately, this is the responsibility of the parent to actually parent their kids.