Alpha angst

Gen Alpha is coming. 

They are entering the workforce, demanding to both run their own companies and enjoy a greater degree of flexibility. Ah, the naivety of youth.

They are defining languages, with ‘6-7’ being crowned as Dictionary.com’s 2025 Word of the Year. Which also hopefully means it will be forced to write a definition of the term older people can actually understand.

They are even apparently ‘rewiring the fashion industry’, even if every item of clothing looks like something millennials wore at university twenty years ago. 

According to cultural analyst, Casey Lewis, Gen Alpha has seen “YouTube shape their humor, Roblox power their social lives, and TikTok teach them skincare before they hit middle school”.

But, in Australia at least, not for much longer. 

This week, Reddit and Kick were added to the platforms required to ban users under the age of 16 from 10 December. Others could yet join them.

Unless you are a Gen Alpha child, the parent of a Gen Alpha child, or a technology policy nerd, the social media age ban could well have passed you by. And yet, it’s arguably one of the most radical and impactful social policies being enacted in the world right now. 

No one has any real idea how it will play out. 

Will kids rush to the streets, eager to play outside once again, Itchy & Scratchy & Marge-style? Will they simply outfox the government and access the platforms, regardless of the ban? Will they stop saying skibidi and regain their Aussie accents, which have apparently been lost to excessive screen-time? We’re about to find out.