If you’ve had a baby since 2010 you may be wondering what this generation of kids will grow into. What kind of world, what kind of person?

Who are our kids going to be – this generation dubbed “Generation Alpha”?

There are 2.5 million Generation Alphas being born around the globe each week.

Some 6000 a week in Australia. Each new addition to the Alpha Gen born into a world of technological and medical advances their grandparents couldn’t have dreamed of.

There are 2.5 million Generation Alphas being born around the globe each week.

Many of our Gen Alpha babies can expect to live right through to the 22nd century with the average life expectancy for Alpha boys 80.3 and for Alpha girls 84.

Their names are Charlotte or Ava, William, Emily, Jack, Noah or Mia.

Many of them are already celebrities. North West, Harper Beckham, Prince George and his sister Charlotte.

Their lives will have been documented on social media, a digital footprint already set in stone and impossible to erase. They will live lives more sheltered than their parents, but they will be less hovered over than the Generation Z a few years ahead who suffered helicopter parenting.

According to social researcher Mark McCrindle, who coined the term "Generation Alpha", these babies will become the most influential generation the world has ever seen.

Technology

These kids never knew a world without it. They were born as the first iPad was born – in 2010 – and their lives will be seamlessly integrated into technology.

From the moment they could see, screens were all around them, much more so than even children a decade older.

Screens took photos of them from the second they were born. Screens were placed in front of them as a babysitting device. Screens were used at day care and kindy. For entertainment and as education.

At every turn there has been a screen and they know innately how to interact with it.

The world they grow up in will be connected through social networking, they would have already had their first swipe, their first download, their first app. They will take technology for granted. Mark McCrindle says they will be “more influenced by the visual and the video than the written and the verbal.”

What are the generations? (from McCrindle Research.)

Baby Boomers: 1946-1964

Generation X: 1965-1979

Generation Y (Millennials) 1980-1994

Generation Z: 1995-2009

Generation Alpha: 2010-2024

And so it follows that Generation Beta will be 2025-2039.

Education

They are going to be smart, according to McCrindle research.

Aside from the fact they’ll have Siri – or her successor - at their fingertips to answer every single question they might have about anything, they will be well educated.

It is predicted that 90% of Generation Alpha will finish school and almost every one of those students will undertake a university degree.

But we are going to pay for it, with a Gen Alpha child in the public school system will costing around $65,484 for schooling alone, $206,692 in the Catholic system and just under half a million dollars at a private independent school.

Ouch.

Work

They’ll be well educated, but our babies won’t be leaving home to head out into the workforce too soon.

No empty nesting for us.

McCrindle predicts that Alpha’s will not begin working until their mid-20’s – though they will slog it out into their 70’s and 80s.

Relationships

Our babies will be the swiping generation, they’ll meet online, they’ll fall in love online and even date online without ever meeting in person.

Pedro Domingos, computer science professor at the University of Washington and author ofThe Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our Worldrecently told Marie Claire that the new frontier of online dating is the avatar who will essentially date on your behalf, culling out the unsuitable applicants and finding you the one.

Don’t expect it to lead to marriage though. One in three of our daughters won’t bother getting married and, of those who do, most will choose to live with their partner first.

By about 2020, single-person households will make up a third of all households.

Health

Our kids will face different health problems to us.

In good news - it is predicted that cancer will be transformed from a killer disease to a manageable one, but instead our children will face lifestyle threats from obesity cardiovascular disease and dementia.

When our children are adults, according to McCrindle Research there will be more Australians aged over 60 than under 20 for the first time in our history. It is predicted that Alzheimer’s disease will be the number one cause of death.

The prediction is that our Gen Alpha babies will be wealthiest generation ever - but also the most socially conscious.

So while we might feel guilty at raising them in front of a screen we might just be doing something right.

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