In a world that is increasingly talking about the metaverse, nanorobots and artificial intelligence, a new generation appears that will have a more natural contact with this type of technology: the Alpha generation. Children born between 2010 and 2025 are likely to have a more digital logic thinking, but they miss out on what the analogue era offered. But will only technology matter from now on to classify a generation?
The scholar of generations Wivian Weller, PhD in Sociology and professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Brasília (UnB), believes not. For her, there is an impoverishment of the idea of only seeing the new generations through a technological perspective, despite her being part of the world of these children. “A generation is not constituted only by the use of technologies, but we also need to ask what kind of use this generation makes of them”, she evaluates.
Children up to 2 years of age should not have contact with screens according to the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics – Disclosure / Reporting paths
This use of technology for a non-virtual reality problem was what 10-year-old Theo Correia, a resident of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, put into practice. He became a defender of nature after, at the age of 4, he saw in Projeto Tamar the rehabilitation of a sea turtle that had swallowed plastic in the ocean. In what he can, he tries to act and draw attention to environmental destruction. He has already collected garbage on beaches and also organized, together with his mother, picnics with more than 100 children to plant trees.
And he didn’t stop there. During the pandemic, he started studying programming at the CodeBuddy school and created the game Ciclovias Verdes, in which a cyclist picks up garbage and pollution in exchange for points. The idea now is to have a sponsorship so that scores in the virtual world are reversed in real-world attitudes of reforestation or depollution.
who are the alphas
Pediatrician Roberto Franklin plays with his children to avoid screen exposure – Disclosure / Reporting paths
Faster and faster updates and news all the time. Children up to 12 years old, who are part of the Alpha, are already born naturally facing this speed. And if the virtual world is engaging for adults, for children it goes beyond fun: today it’s also a way to meet and interact with friends.
The games were a point of conflict between the doctor Cristiane Guimarães and her son, Bernardo, 11, in Brasília. During the pandemic, without being able to find friends, video games were one of the hobbies he had. But it became a matter of concern for parents. One day, in an extreme attitude, Cristiane disconnected all the equipment and locked it in a closet, in addition to confiscating her son’s cell phone. It was only later, seeing Bernardo’s sadness at not being able to meet his friends virtually, that the two reached an agreement: the limit of 2 hours a day to play.
Cristiane’s attitude is in accordance with the booklet of the Brazilian Society of Pediatrics, released in 2020. The manual recommends avoiding the use of screens by children under 2 years of age. And between the ages of 2 and 18, parents need to limit screen time and video game use. This is to prevent exaggerations from happening, as there are diseases related to this type of addiction: digital addiction was, in 2019, included in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) by the World Health Organization (WHO).
digital divide
Riverside children in the Amazon without much access to digital technologies
However, in a country where 19% of the population still do not have access to the internet, it becomes difficult to place all the children of a generation in certain stereotypes. Without public policies for access to technology, exclusion can be even greater. The lack of access to equipment and the internet means that the excluded of this generation also do not have the same opportunities as others to reach a job market that is already projected on top of the virtual world.
At the public school Comunidade de Aprendizagem do Paranoá (CAP), in Brasília, most children do not have full access to technologies. To soften this distance from digital reality, the school managed to collect 16 tablets during the pandemic. “We really need this to arrive as soon as possible and that it potentiates the process of social communication and relationship with the world and construction of knowledge for all children, from all strata”, evaluates Professor Matheus Fernandes de Oliveira.
But the school, by adopting a model that breaks with the pattern of traditional education, offers students the development of other types of skills, also essential for children’s independence and social life. The school’s director, Renata Resende, recalls that the model used in traditional education dates back to the 19th century. “There is a need to adapt the school format to these new times, which is something not only of the Alpha generation, but that we already I’ve been feeling it for a long time,” he says.
For José Moran, an education specialist and retired professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), it is essential to review this educational model. And it is possible to have a hybrid reality, with manual games and digital games, for example, whatever is convenient at any given moment. “The digital involved and a little affection is an indispensable path for this generation”, he says.
The subject is the subject of the next episode of Reporting Paths“Geração Alpha: children beyond technology”, which airs this Sunday (13), at 8 pm, on TV Brazil.
