Popular (or pop) culture has dominated the social scene for decades. From Elvis Presley to Taylor Swift, culture and social interactions are based on the very essence of trends and fashion.
In recent decades, the rise of social media has given way to a diverse sense of style, music, and entertainment, ranging from minimalist to maximalism.
Each person has their own taste in culture and style, causing a ripple of unique differences to overtake the globe.
Differences we, as a global community, have learned to accept and hate all the same.
In light of these jarring changes, a new generation has risen from the ashes and has begun to take hold of the world as their own. And as the years go by, and the Earth ages, education threatens the very existence of this new age group.
Generation (Gen) Alpha is the subgenre of bemusement, a confusing, yet variegated group of young individuals, ready and willing to take over the world.
Their language and lingo can only be marked as absurd, yet genius, and their sense of humor has left generations before them lost in a world of delirium and wonder.
Simply, Gen Alpha may be too complex (or too mindless) to understand.
Enter, the old and tattered clause of the education system.
The education system has been in action for centuries, ranging across cultures and eras, teaching billions of young souls.
However, despite this long ranging history, high schools across America have stayed stagnant in the midst of a swirling tsunami of transformation.
As the years pass and new generations are born, each student is now met with a perilous program: the outdated, underserved education system. And unfortunately, I don’t think Gen Alpha is ready for the fight of high school.
It is the battle of the century, teacher versus student, co-worker versus co-worker, and no one can understand each other. Gen Alpha has proved to be a challenge; their foreign language, unknown and unlearned, and their seemingly “stupid culture”, unsolved and unmanaged, it’s a pitfall waiting to happen.
As early as next year, the freshmen will not be understood by anyone on campus. And this understimulating, sit-in-a-room for hours, education system is NOT going to help.
Social media, the modern pop culture beacon, has caused the massacre of the century, stealing seconds and stealing hours, stealing years, and damaging the average human’s attention span.
It is said an individual will waste nine years of their life, sitting and doom scrolling and rotting in their bed, lights off, under the covers. And with the rise of meme after meme harvested by Gen Alpha, the “Brain Rot generation” has officially entered the branches of significant society.
As social media rises in use and desiration, a thirsting quenched crave, constructed to destroy and damage, Gen Alpha will not survive in the focused lifestyle of the average high school classroom.
The looming interrogations of lessons taught, the hyper-focus, hyper-tension of assignments, the blaring deadlines that are endless, these factors will be the end of Gen Alpha.
Before we as a society know it, the pressure of “normal school” will seem like a prison yard for the new generation, and too many rising stars will be snuffed out before college, hiding in their childhood bedroom and living off of their parents’ salaries.
The education system needs to change. Understimulation is going to drive Gen Alpha to the grave. And while this change is derived from a dooming history of social media, the damage has already been done.
We’re the ones to blame.
And there is no going back.