Alright, if you’ve ever held the legendary Nokia 3310 or your email address ends with @yahoo.co.uk… well, you’re officially old. You belong to older generational cohorts. These cutoff points are not science. They are a simple way we use to tell ages apart. Each generation saw its own wave of tech, and each wave shaped how people lived.
Boomers grew up with radios, landlines, and newspapers. Tech was fixed and predictable. Communication was slow and information came from a few “trusted” sources. Whatever the tabloids or radio said was basically gospel. Funny how we now have presidents older than that era. Sheesh!
Gen X caught the shift from analogue to digital. They had TVs and early computers. Oh, and they actually watched a man walk on the moon. Yes, that really happened.
Gen Y, aka Millennials, grew up with early mobile phones, SMS, and bulky PCs. They saw the birth of Google, YouTube, and the iPod. They ruled social media on Mxit long before Twitter enslaved us all to doomscroll. They evolved from floppy disks to USBs, from gigantic CPUs to sleek laptops. They lived through the arrival of Wi-Fi… and the mighty Wikipedia. They felt every new layer of tech in real time. What a generation.
Then came Gen Z, the poster kids of modern tech. Smartphones and iPads are their playgrounds. They hop from YouTube to TikTok without a second thought. They’ve never known the agony of 2G speeds or the ritual of burning CDs with Nero Burning ROM. Instead, they stream playlists on Spotify. Wi-Fi going down feels like a national crisis. They build friendships in group chats and launch trends in hours, shaping culture through clips and memes. True digital natives.
Now, meet Gen Alpha, the kids who act like the world was made for them. And honestly, it might have been. They are growing up with AI as a given. Their reality will be worlds apart from any generation before.
The future is theirs. They’ll ask questions and get instant, full answers. Their learning tools will adapt to their pace. They’ll create faster because AI does the heavy lifting. A child with no drawing skill will produce a van Gogh level art from a simple prompt. For them, there is barely a barrier between an idea and the outcome. They’ll blend play and productivity in ways older gens will struggle to grasp.
It’s a scary shift. Adults will have to learn AI just to keep up with their kids. Parenting will change. Parental guidance now includes digital habits and AI literacy. Education will transform as teachers work with systems that adapt faster than any old textbook.
The world has changed. Maybe instead of Gen Alpha, we should call these guys The Artificials.
