Generation Alpha
For those with access, children's entertainment has been increasingly dominated by electronic technology, social networks, and streaming services, with interest in traditional television concurrently falling.
As of 2020, roughly three-quarters of all people reside in Africa and Asia,[30] where most human population growth is coming from, as nations in Europe and the Americas tend to have too few children to replace themselves.
In general, the more developed countries, including much of Europe, the United States, South Korea, and Australia, tend to have lower reproduction rates,[33] with people statistically having fewer children, and at later ages.
[36] In mid-2019, the United Nations estimated that the human population will reach about 9.7 billion by 2050, a downward revision from an older projection to account for faster falling fertility rates in the developing world.
[39] Effects of intensifying wealth inequality in the early twenty-first century is expected to be seen in the next generation, as parental income and educational level are positively correlated with children's success.
[42] Addressing Japan's demographic crisis and low birthrate, in 2019, the government of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe introduced a number of education reforms.
[43] In 2020, the government of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc recommended a series of education reforms in order to raise the fertility rates of localities that found themselves below the replacement level, including the construction of daycare facilities and kindergartens in urban and industrial zones, housing subsidies for couples with two children in sub-replacement areas, and priority admission for children of said couples in public schools.
Due to a combination of the (now rescinded) one-child policy and the traditional preference for sons, young boys are perceived by many to be overly coddled by their parents, and looked at as effeminate, delicate, and timid.
[citation needed] In France, while year-long mandatory military service for men was abolished in 1996,[46] all citizens between 17 and 25 years of age must still participate in the Defense and Citizenship Day, when they are introduced to the French Armed Forces, and take language tests.
Though it does not explicitly involve military training, it requires recruits to spend four weeks at a camp where they participate in a variety of activities designed to teach practical skills, personal discipline and a greater understanding of the French political system and society.
[48] In 2018, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy statement summarizing progress on developmental and neurological research on unstructured time spent by children, colloquially 'play', and noting the importance of playtime for social, cognitive, and language skills development.
[49] In 2019, psychiatrists from Quebec launched a campaign advocating the creation of courses on mental health for primary schoolchildren in order to teach them how to handle a personal or social crisis, and to deal with the psychological impact of the digital world.
[53] In any case, some 80% of historical records and documents of the United States, such as the correspondence of Abraham Lincoln, were written by hand in cursive, and students today tend to be unable to read them.
[60] Taking advantage of the latest advances in the neuroscience of reading, some instructors have returned to the teaching of phonics to help rectify this problem,[60] with support from the parents and their state governments.
[61][62] According to Jill Barshay of Heschinger Report, because U.S. fertility rates never recovered after the 2007–2008 Great Recession, those born in the late 2000s and onward will likely face less competition getting accepted to colleges and universities.
Ophthalmologist Steve Schallhorn, chairman of the Optical Express International Medical Advisory Board, noted that researchers had pointed to a link between the regular use of handheld electronic devices and eyestrain.
Its guidelines are similar to those introduced by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which recommended that children under 19 months old should not spend time watching anything other than video chats.
The researchers found that the toddlers who spent more than an hour per day in front of a screen without parental involvement showed less development in the brain's white matter, the region responsible for cognitive and linguistic skills.
Lead author Dr. John Hutton, a pediatrician and clinical researcher at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, told CNN that this finding was significant because the brain develops most rapidly during the first five years of a person's life.
Previous studies revealed that excessive screen time is linked to sleep deprivation, impaired language development, behavioral problems, difficulty paying attention and thinking clearly, poor eating habits, and damaged executive functions.
[79][80] Many members of Generation Alpha have grown up using smartphones and tablets as part of their childhood entertainment, with many being exposed to devices as a soothing distraction or educational aids.
[73] Using smartphones and tablets to access video streaming services such as YouTube Kids and free or reasonably low-budget mobile games became a popular form of entertainment for young children.
According to BabyCenter, an online company specializing in pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing, 79% of Millennial mothers used social media on a daily basis and 63% used their smartphones more frequently since becoming pregnant or giving birth.
Non-profit advocacy group Common Sense Media warned that parents should take better care of their online privacy, lest their and their children's personal information and photographs fall into the wrong hands.
[87] This term was coined due to the majority of Generation Alpha's early childhood being spent watching and interacting with tablets and other smart mobile devices with the assumption of them being addicted.
[96] In the United States, the share of children living with single parents (and no other adults) continued to grow during the 2010s, reaching 23% in 2019, higher than any other country studied by the Pew Research Center, including neighbouring Canada, at 15%.
[106] A study of the understanding of seven- to twelve-year-olds of the pandemic in the UK, Spain, Canada, Sweden, Brazil and Australia found that more than half of children knew a significant amount about COVID-19.
"[29] In 2018, the United Nations forecasted that while the global average life expectancy would rise from 70 in 2015 to 83 in 2100, the ratio of people of working age to senior citizens would shrink due to falling fertility rates worldwide.
The researchers predicted that as the century unfolds, major but aging economies such as Brazil, Russia, Italy, and Spain would shrink while Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom would remain within the top ten.
Hindus (27%), Jews (15%), followers of traditional folk religions (5%), and the religiously unaffiliated (3%) would grow in absolute numbers, but would be in relative decline because their rates of growth are below the global average.
