photo credit: Sophie Rogers
If one were to give thought about it, society now lives in a world where alphas and betas live together in harmony. Unfortunately, the betas only have 14 years until the gammas arrive and mess everything up. How? Generation Labels.
Beginning this year, all kids born between 2025 and 2039 will be classified under the term “Generation Beta” based on the ranges given by social researcher Mark McCrindle, according to ABC News. This marks the third generation of kids born this century, with Gen. Alpha and Gen. Z coming before it.
“It’s scary how they will be our future doctors and stuff, but for now, they should just live in the moment,” junior Sophia Rodenfels said.
The understanding of generations comes from sociologist Karl Mannheim, who described a generation as a timeframe of people born who experienced a significant historical event or are influenced by an event within that set time period in his “Theory of Generations” published in 1927, according to oxfordbibliographies.com. Despite this, the modern naming of generations in the Western world can be traced from William Strauss and Neil Howe in the Strauss-Howe generational theory.
“How Gen. Beta behaves will really depend on the parents,” freshman Shehroz Khan said. “With Gen. Alpha, a lot of their parents have just been giving them iPads and a bunch of free internet space.”
In terms of generations present in the world today, the order is as follows: The Silent Generation, born between 1925-1945, Baby Boomers, born between 1946-1964, Gen X, born between 1965-1979, Gen. Y or Millennials, born between 1980-1994, Gen. Z, born between 1995-2009, Gen. Alpha, born between 2010-2024 and Gen. Beta, born between 2035 and 2039, according to mccrindle.com.au. After Gen. Beta, Gen. Gamma will follow, starting in 2040 and ending sometime in the 2050s.
“My Generation is Gen. X. For me, I didn’t have computers in my house until I was in high school,” Social Studies Teacher Jamie Paoloni said. “We had them in our elementary classes, but they were big with these floppy disks, then when I was a freshman in college, we suddenly had the internet.”
Especially with more recent generations, technological advances have played a part in making each generation stand out: Millennials witnessed the rise of personal computers, Gen Z saw the rise of the Internet and the birth of the smartphone and Gen Alpha witnessed the rise of social media and use of smartphones as well as a general larger presence of technology within our lives.
“Technology has definitely changed autonomy; when I started teaching, I was writing on overheads, then we shifted to PowerPoints and then for a brief period, we had the interactive whiteboards,” Paoloni said. “Now, we do so much online.”
When it comes to potential characteristics that could define Gen Beta, it’s possible that this generation may witness a larger integration of artificial intelligence within their childhoods as well as a continuation and advancement of technologies like virtual reality. However, until the years pass, people won’t know what future events will occur to influence the generation or how technology will advance or be used until Gen. Beta fully grows.
“Now we have technology and with virtual reality coming in, I think Gen. Beta will be on technology from day one,” senior Ved Malandkar said. “They’ll probably be the virtual reality generation like how we are the smartphone generation.”
Like everything, the generation naming scheme has flaws that go with it. Depending on who one asks, the start of one generation and the end of another can vary from a few years depending on the source, and the label is also broad enough that a generation’s characteristics won’t necessarily describe everyone born within a certain timeframe. Generation labeling can also lead to stereotyping like what happened this decade with the rise of “Brainrot”, “Ipad Kids” and the use of Gen. Alpha slang.
“I feel they (Gen. Beta) are going to be hooked on technology,” Malandkar said. “There is going to be even dumber memes coming out for that generation.”
Regardless of whether generation naming matters, the naming of Gen. Beta should signal that time is a force no one can stop. As new generations arrive, the cycle of life only continues to keep the run of the human species intact.
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