Mina Zheng, Period 7, 2/2/2024

Mina Zheng
Ms. Fusaro
Modern Mythology Period 7
February 2 2024

We currently live in a pivotal era of rapidly advancing technology and changing social constructs and job markets, especially with the rise of AI. The ones who are fated to lead this movement will be the next generation, Generation Alpha. But as the world grows more and more efficient and knowledge becomes more accessible than ever, why does it seem that children are becoming less and less capable despite having more tools? Or at least, that’s what social media tends to claim, but is it true? A quick google search can offer tons of facts and statistics for either side, but I want to bring my own personal experience into this argument.

I currently work as a tutor and after school assistant for kids as young as pre-k. Working with these children, I can definitely see why many people believe that this generation is reaching an all time low in terms of intelligence, many of them not being able to do fundamental calculations or read words that should be simple for their age. Of course, I consider the fact that the sample size is biased because smarter kids typically do not need tutoring, but even so, some of the children that were considered to be “gifted” were… unimpressive? I work with a fifth grader who is supposedly ahead for his age, and yet cannot compute simple operations with fractions, or sound out unknown words. The children are largely not the ones to be blamed for this, obviously. I find that one of the biggest contributing factors to this is systemic. Recently, I learned that NYC has just begun to implement a curriculum that emphasizes phonics, after they (finally) realized that literacy and education is reaching an all time low. Clearly, many elementary schools have been teaching children how to memorize, and not how to read. Middle school children will mispronounce the word “completion” as “computer,” because they vaguely look alike, but will have no idea what sounds the letters actually make. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic hit at a bad time for them, taking away a year of learning that is essential to their growth. Children who missed their first years of education because of the pandemic struggle with elementary concepts, like adding and subtracting, simply because they have never been taught it properly.

Speaking of education, another critical factor to this are the parents. Said children who missed an essential year of education should have been supported by their parents, but aren’t. This is the first generation that have grown up in a tech savvy world, and have parents who typically are at least minimally proficient in the digital world. I feel that this leads to negligence and a lack of early education for children, as parents feel that they do not need to spend as much effort and time teaching and playing with their children, because their iPad can do it for them. The amount of toddlers that I see knowing how to navigate a phone is disturbing, and although one can argue my generation did the same, it is clearly worse with the newer one. During tutoring sessions, it is obvious how technology has impacted their attention span, and it is only getting worse.

The world becoming ever more digital is inevitable, but I believe that the consequences of them on younger kids can be limited. Children cannot nurture themselves into functioning adults alone, so if parents and teachers won’t help them, then who will?