Last week, the world hit a landmark number of eight billion people alive on the planet. November 15 was the designated day (it baffles me how it is done, counted and accounted for) when the eight billionth baby was to be born in an eight billion-alive world. And it happened. Apparently.
Today, the world hosts eight billion humans across a whole set of continents. Divided by geography but united by life. Geography is biology. This landmark (more appropriately, a ‘people mark’) event has us scurrying around to understand the complexity of so many living humans, their differences and commonalities.
Modern-day sociologists, marketers, and practitioners of the art, science and philosophy of people-watching have found a solution to segment humans into common groups for easy understanding. The solution is in labelling generations into common clusters.
Every 15 years (and maybe lesser time bands in the future) is the time to name a whole new generation of people and give them a dog tag. We are familiar with the old descriptive generations of the Baby Boomers (1946–64), Gen X (1965–1980) and the Millennials/Gen Y (1981–96), and so are we familiar with the labels that spoke of Gen X, Y and Z. What happens then when the last alphabet has been done with? Time to go to the next cohort of generation names. And here it is. Generation Alpha (2010–25) is here. And most of them are born already and live in your home and mine. If not these, our neighbours.
Gen Alpha is an exciting start to a whole new cohort of people who can be classified more or less similarly by what fashions them, what motivates them and, more importantly, what drives them to do what they do and will do.
This is a cohort that promises to be the largest-ever generation over the next two years. One out of seven people you will meet out there is a Gen Alpha creature. In many ways, the Gen Alpha kid is the offspring of a Millennial, but the Millennial is yesterday’s being. We have understood them to death and boredom. Our every offering, whether it is governmental, social, economic, political or religious, has been tailor-made to them. Time to un-make it all, then. Time to sit up and take notice of Alpha ‘Abhinav’ and Alpha ‘Alpana’ alike.
In terms of the distribution of this new generation in our midst, three countries lead in sheer numbers—India, China, and Indonesia will see their biggest-ever clusters. And these three countries will therefore see the biggest changes that are required to be planned for.
The beginning of it all, therefore, lies in a common understanding of this new cohort. Governments and businesses need to leverage their future and present offerings to cater to this large swathe of the modern emerging society. This Gen Alpha grows by night. Who are they, then? And what distinguishes them?
My research in this space over the last two years tells me this is a rather uniquely sensitised generation. It is a generation that has witnessed upheaval in terms of the biggest-ever health scare—Covid. This is a Covid-cohort for sure.
It is equally a generation that is shaped by social media. A generation that has morphed from a multi-device-centric life to a single-device-centric existence. Everything now converges into the smartphone. Remember, the phone needs to be smarter than you. In many ways, it will define how smart you will be. The smartphone is, therefore, the purveyor of all information that is necessary, and you need not replicate what it can do.
The Alpha Generation is a cohort that is “with-it”. Now, what does that mean? They learn young, they are agile, they are sensitive, and they are sensitised by technology more than anything else as an influencer in their lives. 5G, Siri, Artificial Intelligence and airpods are all devices and accoutrements to simple living that are taken for granted. Smartphones, tablets, video games, electric vehicles and smart speakers are considered to be a part of basic existence. And “you be you” is the mantra around.
This generation is quite non-judgmental, unlike the one that spawned it. This is an inclusive lot, a lot that believes in the bigger cause than the smaller one that got the attention of their parents.
Is it all hunky dory ahead, then? Or are there concern markers I scent in my research exercise that covers 11,840 beings of Gen Alpha? There are many, really. Let me mention just the top three.
One is that the mind is being trained and used differently altogether. Equally, the body is being used differently. Hard work with the hand and foot in use is being replaced by hard work of the mind kind. Replacing hard work with smart work is fine, but who will do all the hard work around? Is there going to be a shortage of willing and capable resources in this stream?
The second is that the accent is on the general as opposed to the specific. There is a focus on a broad swathe of things as opposed to a few.
This is great, but does it mean that we are going to have a whole generation of generalists with very few specialists? What does it mean for the sciences? What does it mean for every empirical science and its pursuit?
The third is a bigger concern for me. Childhood is dead or dying faster than ever before. The kid of today is growing up faster than ever before. The kid in the house is a device expert of every kind. If you have a problem with a new smartphone, the go-to person is the youngest kid in the house.
Today, kids are growing up faster than ever before. “Up-ageing” is here. The Alpha Generation is a childhood killer. There is less play and more fun. There is less of the outdoor and more of the indoor. There is less of the real and more of the virtual.
This Alpha kid has fewer physical friends and more virtual ones. If you check his virtual presence, he has 812 friends on Facebook and just one in his class. He follows many but follows nothing at all as well. Childhood is dead. Nine is the new 15, and 15 is the new 25.
Points to ponder over. Points to worry about.
Harish Bijoor
Brand Guru and Founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc