The kids are all chronically online
Something is wrong with the children.
But contrary to what this country’s administration would have you believe, the culprit isn’t Tylenol or drag queens reading picture books. No — the reason this next generation is so feral is undoubtedly their unfettered access to the internet.
To preface, I myself am a proud member of Gen Z. I grew up in the 2010s as the internet began to bloom and fell victim to the iPod Touch craze. I remember absolutely begging my parents to buy me one because all my friends had them, and I couldn’t stand missing out.
My mom was hesitant. She never was very keen on me having internet access — all I owned was a portable DVD player and a purple 3-DS — but she caved and bought me one for Christmas of my fourth-grade year. Needless to say, I was thrilled. Finally, I could join my fellow ten-year-olds on Snapchat, Instagram and, as the infamous clock app was then called, Musical.ly.
When I turned 12, I got my first real smartphone: a Samsung that I was simultaneously embarrassed of (my dad works in I.T. and loathes Apple; he drew the line at an iPhone) but glad to have, if only to use social media when I wasn’t connected to Wi-Fi.
If owning an iPod was bad for me, then having a smartphone almost sent me to an early grave. Constant social media access severely impacted me during my formative years and made me a comparative, self-conscious young woman. I know now how toxic the online world is, but like most people my age I’ve become a phone addict. I worry that little girls in the next generation will fall down a similar rabbit hole.
My youngest sister Sophie is ten now, the same age I was when I got that cursed iPod Touch. Though she doesn’t have the social media access that I did, that child’s technology usage is already quite problematic.
Sophie is part of the new Gen Alpha. These kids were born between 2010 and 2025, and they are the first generation to grow up entirely in a digital world. From iPads and tablets to gaming consoles and smart watches, Gen Alpha interacts with technology all day, every day.
Both Sophie and my other sister, Savannah, who will soon turn 12, have iPads. Sophie spends most of her after-school time hunched over hers playing Roblox. If it’s not Roblox, it’s YouTube or some other brain-rotting app.
Statistics from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry from June 2025 show that children aged 8–18 spend on average seven and a half hours a day with their eyes glued to a screen. Sophie’s probably isn’t quite that high, but she still spends the majority of her free time tapping away at a device or staring at her TV with glazed eyes.
My mom tries to entice her to do other things — “Want to read a book, Sophie? We can get that copy of ‘Harry Potter’ Scarlett bought for you” — but Sophie wants nothing to do with any of it. She insists she hates reading, hates school and hates playing outside because everything is “boring.”
What doesn’t bore her is Roblox. Not only is the internet rotting her brain, but it’s killing her attention span.
The instant gratification of high-speed internet has made our children (and let’s be honest, us too) terribly lazy. They struggle with real-world tasks because they simply aren’t used to the concept of waiting. They cannot fathom devoting their time to something because they’re used to getting what they want immediately with the push of a button.
I notice this effect each time I go home: Sophie tells me over the phone that she’s so excited to see me, but she turns back to the online world 15 minutes into my visit. She literally cannot pull herself away.
Another pressing issue is social media. Impressionable young children come across videos of influencers advertising beauty products, trendy clothes and activities that are decidedly not age-appropriate. This promotes unhealthy beauty standards: children see 20-year-olds online and immediately want to emulate what they’re wearing, doing and saying.
Sophie has recently become obsessed with skincare and makeup even though my mom insists she’s too young for both, and this is thanks to the content marketed towards young adults that she sees online. She sneaks mascara on before school and tries to persuade my mom to buy her all the latest TikTok fads like Stanley Cups and Labubus.
As a result, she and children like her are experiencing little of the “traditional” childhood most of us had. They’re growing up much too fast.
To be fair, I spent my fair share of time filming extremely cringey videos with my friends on our iPods, but I was also an avid reader. I spent much of my time devouring new chapter books, and I always chose reading over screens. I also spent hours and hours outside on our family farm helping feed the cows or braiding the horses’ manes and tails.
Sophie is a strong reader when she’s forced to be, but she would never willingly choose a book over her iPad. And although my family has tried to shape her into the kind of farm kid I was, she’s only amused by her bottle calves for a few minutes at most.
There is very little sense of wonder or exploration with these Gen Alpha children. They have no interest in venturing outdoors. They would rather consume content in the form of 15-second video clips — content made using astonishing amounts of electricity, which increases carbon emissions and harms the environment. Instead of interacting with nature, these kids remain indoors and use technology that destroys it.
The saddest part of all of this is that it isn’t Gen Alpha’s fault they’re so addicted to screens. They’ve never known a world without technology, and it continues to flourish, becoming easier to work and more accessible.
Parents, teachers and all responsible adults must come together and realize how dangerous the internet is for children. They are our future, but how are they supposed to change the world for the better if they’ve become helpless screen-zombies?
