Kids These Days, and Their Helicopter Parents that Want Them Off Social Media
What Marketers Need to Know About Gen Alpha & Their Millennial Parents
Co-written by Richard Yao & Thomas Trudeau
Move over, Gen Z! There’s a new generation that marketers are chasing after. The kids today, also known as “Generation Alpha,” are roughly born between 2010 and today. Numbering 48 million in the U.S. alone (or 15% of the U.S. population), they not only bring forth a major shift in media consumption, but are also starting to influence household spending and purchase decisions across categories.
As the children of Millennials, these digital and AI natives bring a unique sense of humor, attitude, and slang to the table, reshaping where and how brands seeking after a younger audience conduct their campaigns and craft their media strategies. Here’s a quick primer on the youngest generation to hit marketers’ radar.
YouTube as Babysitter
One thing about the kids these days: they are no longer waiting around the TV to watch their favorite cartoon or other children’s programs. Even more so than Gen Z, this is a generation being raised by online video. According to Morning Consult, about half of parents of Gen Alpha children (51%) said their youngest child streams video content at least once a day, with reading books and playing video games trailing further behind (40% and 37%, respectively).
In particular, YouTube stands out as a popular video platform among Gen Alpha kids today. The Morning Consult report also notes that 68% of Gen Alpha uses YouTube, and 56% of parents say what they watch on YouTube, especially unboxing videos and other shopping content, directly influences their retail choices.
Naturally, this has spurred a younger generation of YouTube creators, such as Ryan Kaji of “Ryan’s World” and tween beauty influencer Evelyn, with whom brands are increasingly interested in working with. It has also prompted major streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ to develop and integrate more children’s content to remain competitive. Eight in ten parents overall say their kids are frequently watching content from streaming services, per a recent YPulse survey, and unsurprisingly, Netflix and Disney+ rank as the top places that Gen Alpha parents say their children are watching video content weekly or more.
With more kids spending their time streaming content vs. watching cable channels like Nickelodeon and Disney Family, the traditional “family viewing” time in the living room is diminishing, replaced by more private, solo consumption, often via a tablet device. A Razorfish study found that 43% of Gen Alphas in the US had tablets before the age of six, and 58% received their first iPhone by age 10.
A downstream effect of this shift towards on-demand video consumption is that Gen Alpha places higher value on having control, agency and intentionality in their experiences with media, a shift to more “purposeful participation” compared with their parents’ (largely millennials) “mindless consumption,” a study by Nickelodeon Consumer Insights found.
One way this demand for control and agency manifests is Gen Alpha’s preference for gaming. Alpha’s most preferred game type are those that allow them to flex their individual creativity, noted the study. “While Gen Z has gravitated toward collaboration, cooperation, and competition game experiences like Fortnite, Alpha kids most prefer immersive, creative and building-based game environments, such as Roblox and Minecraft,” the study found.
This preference for immersive gaming correlates with the recent increase of VR usage among teens. A recent Piper Sandler survey of 6,020 US teens found that 33% now own a VR device, up from 31% in fall 2023, and weekly usage of VR devices increased to about 13% from 10% from six months ago.
Virtual Playground
It’s no secret that for a lot of kids today, socialization mostly happens on digital platforms, especially with social media and, increasingly so, online games.
According to Morning Consult, older Gen Alphas are forming their social media habits now: 65% of those ages 8–10 are spending up to 4 hours a day on social media. According to GWI, the most popular social media platforms for Gen Alpha users are Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
Interestingly, having their entire lives mostly conducted and displayed through social media have also led to a backlash against monetizing their social media presence. As Generation Alpha ages, they’re reportedly less inclined to star in their social media content. 25% of the oldest members of Gen Alpha say it would be very easy for them to give up social media, per a 2022 survey by Pew Research Center, compared to 16% of the youngest members of Gen Z.
As the Variety chart above shows, Gen Alpha spends over a third of their media time on video games. While action-adventure games like Call of Duty and FIFA are more popular among older gamers, Gen Alpha prefers open-world games like Roblox and Minecraft, where they build worlds and go on adventures with others.
For brands seeking to connect with the Gen Alpha audience, gaming should be a table-stake channel. This also includes gaming-related channels such as gameplay livestreams on Twitch and YouTube, esports contests. and so on. A recent Newzoo report found that 70% of Gen Alpha are both watching and playing video games.
This also explains why most of the Gen Alpha slang words and memes, such as “gyat” and “Fanum tax,” tend to originate from the gaming space, as that is the virtual playground where Gen Alpha are socializing and creating their own youth culture. For brands that wish to connect with them, learning their gaming-centric slang and humor is a prerequisite.
The AI-Native Generation
If Gen Z is the first digital-native generation that has never known a life without smartphones, then Gen Alpha would be the first AI-native generation to grow up with AI deeply entrenched in their daily lives. They are not afraid to utilize AI as just another tool in the toolbox: in a recent Big Village survey, 44% of teens say they will likely use AI as a means to tackle their schoolwork in the upcoming 2022–2023 academic year.
They might be the first generation to embrace AI search over traditional search: younger generations already prefer searching on social platforms over Google for more relatable results. This youngest generation’s openness towards AI use might just be what drives them to ditch conventional search for a more intuitive Q&A-style way of finding information.
Moreover, for a generation that is already seeking control in their media consumption and expressing their creativity in gaming, generative AI will likely be embraced by Gen Alpha as a creative tool that helps them to craft unique content, design personalized experiences, and explore endless possibilities in storytelling and digital creation. Roblox recently introduced AI-powered avatars and other 3D creation tools to its game, which is right up Gen Alpha’s alley.
Timothy Papandreou, an advisor to Alphabet’s research and development organization, explained at a recent event that A.I. will lead to a transition from a generation of programmers to a generation of “perfect prompters,” as kids develop new skills to utilize generative A.I. “assistants” throughout their lives.
In short, Gen Alpha will navigate a world where AI is as commonplace as electricity is today. Their native fluency in AI will enable them to harness this technology in innovative ways, but it also places a significant responsibility on educators, policymakers, and technologists today to guide this integration ethically and safely.
Millennial Parenting
For many Millennial parents, their introduction to parenting was a global pandemic where getting through each day was a matter of survival with little consideration for enrichment philosophies. They responded with stuff… lots of stuff, including copious use of screens. School days were on Zoom, and YouTube became the only childcare available to many parents.
Several distinct post-pandemic parenting styles have taken shape among Millennials compared to past generations.
- Gentle parenting: Millennials consult their kids’ preferences and feelings with frequent negotiation and open communication. Nearly all of them discuss mental health with their kids.
- Experiences over material goods: Millennials prioritize quality time spent with their kids. Working mothers today spend as much time with their kids as stay at home mothers did 40 years ago. 4 in 5 prioritize children over their careers with little difference between mothers and fathers.
- Better-than-my-parents parenting: Millennials, never lacking in confidence, are resolute in their parenting philosophies with 73% believing they parent better than their parents.
- Highly involved: from academics to extracurriculars, Millennials are active participants in their kids’ lives. Parenting is core to who they are and their values. According to a 2020 American Family Survey, 80% consider “being a parent” to be an extremely or very important part of their identity, which is up nine percent vs. 2018 and tops the list of other identities.
As a result of these new characteristics of Millennial parenting, kids-related consumption habits have shifted in recent years. After record high sales during the pandemic, parents bought fewer toys in 2023. However, the educational toy market is projected to grow from $61.6B in 2023 to $106.3B in 2030. 75% of parents say they buy toys that they believe will contribute to their kids’ future success. Parents view traditional toys as more likely to stimulate emotional development (87%) vs digital screen toys (15%).
Speaking of screens…
The No-Phone Childhood Movement
Millennials are the first (and will be the last) parenting generation to experience childhood both before and after the internet, smartphones and social media, which colors their philosophy on raising kids in a screen-dominant world.
Jonathan Haidt’s new book “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing An Epidemic of Mental Illness” has lit up Op-Ed boards and parental chat groups. As Peggy Noonan puts it in a piece for the Wall Street Journal:
There’s a funny thing that happens in a nation’s thoughts. At some point everyone knows something is true, and talks about it with each other. The truth becomes a cliché before it becomes actionable. Then a person of high respect, a good-faith scholar who respects data, say, comes forward with evidence proving what everyone knows, and it is galvanizing. It hits like a thunderclap, and gives us all permission to know what we know and act on it.
Indeed, Haidt’s book has touched a nerve with Millennial parents, whose kids are already proficient navigating smartphones but have yet to fully engage with social media. No surprise that it has since sparked a larger conversation about anxiety over technology.
Information-savvy Millennials had an instinct that social media was somehow bad for their kids. Mental health in college campuses has reached alarming levels during a time which young people would pay to have everyone delete TikTok and Instagram. So surely we can all agree social media is Public Enemy Number One!
But sometimes forgotten in Haidt’s book, with headlines that focus on social media and phones, is the reality that America’s mental health decline precedes social media. What if the helicopter parenting style which invites kids to offer their preferences, but robs kids of actual independence is also to blame for producing anxious adults? What if, in our quest to keep our kids’ schedules fully optimized and out of the dangers of the real world, we have instead left them ill-equipped to transition to adulthood?
Parents have panicked over kids’ consumption habits in the past. Before social media, video games were to blame for society’s ills. Even the novel was once seen as corruptive! Furthermore, there is conflation of social media use with smartphone use which requires more introspection. (For example, some parents use smartphones for wholesome purposes such as to teach their kids chess and practice dribbling.)
While there will be a cohort of Millennial parents who join forces in solidarity to ban smartphones and social media until their kids go off to college, it’s unlikely that Millennial parents will become luddites en masse. So what are the practical implications for brands?
Perhaps more than any other generation, Millennial parents will influence their young kids’ consumption habits. 75% of parents now agree it’s important to share the entertainment they love with their children. The market for hybrid digital and physical (aka “phygital”) products is expected to surpass $200 trillion by the end of the decade as consumers expect things to seamlessly transition between worlds. And demand for products that are seen promoting skills or development will continue to rise, with educational toys already the most in demand among Gen Alpha’s parents.
Seismic changes to consumer behavior influenced by parenting philosophies du jour may take another generation to firmly take hold, but brands can nevertheless capitalize on headwinds facing attention-for-the-sake-of-attention era epitomized by social media.
If you wish to learn more insights into the Gen Alpha audience, their Millennial parents, and how to reach them effectively, please reach out to Tom Trudeau at tom@ipglab.com.
