There’s been a shift in the dynamic around Arcata High School. A school filled with Gen Z students for the past ten or so years has now been infiltrated by the youngest generation. Generation alpha. Gen Alpha, beginning in 2010, has taken its first steps onto high school campuses around the globe.
Only four years younger than some of the seniors, and it already feels like we grew up in a very different time. Covid hit these freshmen in fourth grade. When we were on our last stretch towards high school, about to jump into eighth grade, they were still focusing on where to put commas in their sentences. For many, lockdown seems like a distant memory, but the seniors’ peak of Covid was the freshman reality just a year ago.
There’s often a stigma around Gen Alpha that they’re a generation infatuated with technology, but some could argue that this is because of their forced early online life.
“Covid happened at such an early part in their life that they had so much time spent sitting at home on their devices at such a formidable age,” senior Layla Backman-Quinn said. “They should’ve been socializing with kids and not at home watching TikTok or learning school on Zoom.”.
This generation is the first to be born into the 21st century. 2,010 high school students were born in the same year as the iPad and Instagram. They had to learn how to become tech-savvy and use their iPad skills to the fullest during lockdown.
“After Covid, a lot of teachers switched to mostly technology-based assignments, like using online textbooks,” Gen Alpha freshman, India Croy said. “It’s affected and still is affecting us, all the extra time spent on technology is a lot more than it should be, especially in school.”
If you’ve heard some words and phrases around campus that you may not recognize, it’s possible you were standing next to one of those alpha underclassmen.
“It’s like they speak a different language, and that language is TikTok,” senior Mason Myers’ said.
Growing up online, ‘slang’ is becoming more and more complicated it seems. Some freshmen don’t see that the introduction of technology from such an early age had much of an effect on their generation at all.
“I don’t really think technology affects who we are.” said freshman Toajah Dennui. When asked right after about when he got a phone his ironic response was, “Oh yeah I got my first phone when I was 8 years old.”
Most seniors recalled getting their first phone when they were entering middle school or even later. Now, most kids have a screen in front of them from the second they can walk.
“Our generation is growing up way too fast. It makes me sad because you don’t get to see kids just being kids very often anymore,” freshman Naomi Rush-Copple said.
Good luck to all the teachers learning about this new group of students; and to all the Gen Alpha freshmen out there remember to slow down and be a kid while you still have the chance.
