In this day and age, both parents of a household are needed to work long and hard hours in order to pay an ever-increasing mountain of bills and expenses. Tapped dry of all energy, these people come home to their children in need of parenting. The parents, instead of mustering up the little energy they have left, give their children electronics and such. By giving the kids a distraction in the form of a bright, rectangular screen, the parents are giving themselves time to rest until their next paychecks need to be made. Sure, an iPad is an easy solution, but it is not the best.
The earliest age that a child receives an iPad is two. The average age that a child receives a smartphone is ten. Kids getting electronics is only half of the problem, the other half being the unregulated amount of screen time these kids are getting. It is recommended by many healthcare professionals that children aged two to five should be allotted only one hour of screen time.
All of this cannot go without mentioning the harmful effects of all the fast-paced, overstimulating content that is present on the internet. When you give your two-year-old an iPad, you are giving them access to the world. There is child friendly content, sure, and you are able to use your time to relax and or work as a parent. To hand your child the world on a screen, a great filter that feeds them curated filth, is to subject their young and impressionable minds to the dangers of the internet. It means to give kids access to be groomed by predators, to be exposed to dangerous ideologies, and to be influenced by random strangers’ content. All of this can disrupt the natural process of childhood and cause children to be underdeveloped. This dooms us. One day, Gen Alpha will grow to be adults and take the reins of society. If Gen Alpha continues to degrade and suffer from the effects of the world wide web, then they will grow into depressed, out-of-touch, socially inept, and weak individuals, causing a decline in human progression.
The internet has an awful habit of blowing certain issues out of proportion, and this cultural phenomenon of children as young as two being painfully familiar with the internet may not be as widespread as it seems. However, the line between reality and the internet is getting thinner and thinner everyday, and the internet has seemingly replaced toys in their purpose to condition children to adult life. And, that adult life is becoming more and more treacherous, more dangerous, more unsuitable for everyone and everything good. This system we have made, the methods of money exchanging and society at large, has gutted our ability to live good and meaningful lives. Rather than seeking to build communities and relationships, and engage in lifelong passions, we instead are regulated into hunting the next paycheck. When we reach our quarry, we gut it and give away most of it to creditors, landlords, bills, supplies, and any other needed item. This constant uphill battle consumes time and growth, leaving no room for genuine human joy. And so parents go home and wallow in their situation, and when their kids come to beg them to play, these parents commission electronics to do the parents, while the parents themselves focus on the things that supposedly matter more, like money and getting rest with what little time they have in a day. Only with a complete overhaul of the system currently in place can we hope to reverse this disastrous snowballing problem.
The alternative, sorry to say, is a complete deterioration of society at large.
Ryan • Mar 1, 2024 at 1:59 pm
Though this article is well written, I would like to respectfully disagree.
I believe such views are deeply pessimistic and dangerous to the attitudes of all people. The capitalist system isn’t perfect, none is, but it works. Any other system that could possibly work is too dangerous, and to be willing to risk the futures and lives of all americans for a possibility is outrageous. There are many solutions in many places, but to overhaul the system would most definitely cause extreme economic downturn.
Capitalism has ups and downs, but it is always shifting, changing. To say that to continue it cause a “deterioration of society at large.” is to completely ignore the great depression, the recession in 2008, and numerous other times the system was bad, but, would you look at that, it did not stay that way.
Some parents give iPads to kids to ignore their own responsibilities. This is not mentioned even once in the article, and yet it can be observed that it is happening in all classes of society. To only observe one possible cause of an issue, especially when challenging a system that has been effective for more than 200 years, is to disregard the ideas of basic reasonable journalism, and a testament to the increasing bias in reason and logic in journalism in recent times.
You say that giving a two year old an ipad can expose them to dangerous ideologies. Unfortunately, as a high schooler, I feel as though I am exposed to one now as I am told that a “complete overhaul” is the only possible option to stop a “complete deterioration of society at large.”
LV • Dec 19, 2025 at 9:29 pm
I agree with the original article. While it is indeed true that capitalism isn’t perfect, the attitude that “it still works” is somewhat of a thought-terminating cliche. It also often serves at the detriment of the Global South, especially in, say, sub-Saharan Africa and South(east) Asia, for the benefit of Europe and North America. This phenomenon is called neocolonialism.
To rebut your claim that “any other system [besides capitalism] is too dangerous” (I am assuming that you are referring to socialism here), the USSR went from a feudal backwater (comparable to sub-Saharan Africa or some parts of Central America) pre-revolution (around the early 1910s to the late 1920s) to a superpower which was able to beat the Nazis in WW2 (sustaining 27 million deaths in the process), and the first nation to go to space. Cuba is also relatively successful, even though there has been a 60-year-long embargo against it, with its hardships only increasing after the fall of the USSR. While there do exist poor/underdeveloped socialist countries, most of their underdevelopment can be traced back to US imperialism and destruction (in fact that is the case with many socialist experiments).
While some parents give their kids iPads in order to ignore their own responsibilities, this is not very common, and external factors (such as working 70 hours a week) matter more. In fact, I am somewhat of an “iPad kid”, but more-so just bookish and online. My parents’ ability to look after me is indeed very much influenced by them working, say, 60 hours a week.
“Unfortunately, as a high schooler, I feel as though I am exposed to one [dangerous ideology] now”; typically what is meant by “dangerous ideology” is extreme/far/alt-right ideologies. These types of ideologies are very popular with Gen Alpha kids, namely because of the right’s weaponization of aesthetics and short-form videos, such as on Instagram. These ideologies are much more concerning than left-wing ideologies (which I assume that the author is trying to convey) as far-right politics is inherently reactionary (politics advocating for a return of a “glorified past”, such as a pure white/Christan Europe), whereas far-left politics are inherently egalitarian (such as Republicanism/liberal democracy during the French Revolution, or Socialism). I also believe that you have internalized some perspectives from “Horseshoe Theory”, a political theory espousing that the far-left and far-right converge. To rebut this proposition, name one (1) social advance/progress invented by conservatives. Socialists have abolished child labor, strengthened trade unions, invented the modern-day 40-hour work week, invented the modern weekend, and I could go on.