What is Gen Alpha and how to tell if you are one? Difference between Gen Z and Millennials explained

• Gen Alpha is the next generation you need to know about.
• It follows the likes of Gen Z, Millennial, Gen X and Baby Boomers.
• But who fits into this group and when did this new generation start.

The wheel of time turns and another new generation has been handed a catchy headline ready moniker. 

We’ve had baby boomers, millennials, Gen Z and now entering the fray is Generation Alpha. But who exactly fits into this category - and how can you work out which generation you belong to? 

It can be quite confusing to keep track of all the different generational cohorts, so we’ve broken down who is a Gen Alpha and what the rest of us might be. Here’s all you need to know: 

Who, or what, is a Gen Alpha? 

Generation Alpha. Is it a bird, is it a post 9-11 blockbuster war film or is it a baby born sometime after the early 2010s. 

If you picked answer number three, well done - you win… nothing. But you did get the correct answer. 

The latest moniker for a collection of humans born between an arbitrary set of dates, Generation Alpha (or Gen Alpha for short) is coming in hot as the demographic cohort succeeding Gen Z. Like all the prior generations, there is no exact fixed date for when it starts but the current consensus is that if a child was born after the early 2010s (so in 2012/ 2013 onwards) they will fit into this grouping. 

So if you had a baby during the pandemic, it will be a Gen Alpha and not some awful portmanteau of generation and Covid. According to the good folks over at Wikipedia, some people did try to propose the term ‘Coronials’ but thank the heavens it hasn’t caught on. 

Am I Gen Z or a Gen Alpha? 

If you are reading this article, I’m afraid to say you probably aren’t Gen Alpha. Unless you are an especially precocious 12-year-old - or it has been blasted all over Roblox or whatever apps are cool these days. 

But as mentioned above, it is generally considered that a Gen Alpha is someone born after the early 2010s through to the present day. 

While Gen Z folks entered into this world between 1997 and around 2012. Which means the eldest people in this cohort are nearing their 30s - just three more years to go, your welcome for that existential crisis. 

MTV attempted to give Gen Z the nickname The Founders in the mid-2010s but unfortunately it didn’t manage to catch on. To be fair it does sound like a knock-off monopoly style board game more than a generation of young people. 

When did we start naming generations?

The concept of giving a nickname to a generational cohort is relatively new (at least in the grand scheme of history). The first generation in the western world to get a catchy moniker was the Lost Generation. 

This referred to people born from 1883 to 1900 who were coming of age during the First World War. American writer Gertrude Stein is credited with coining the nickname - and it was popularised by Ernest Hemingway after he used it as an epigraph in his popular novel The Sun Also Rises in the 1920s. 

It proved to be so catchy that all subsequent generations have been handed their own nickname - some more memorable than others. The full list so far is: 

• Lost Generation (1883 - 1900)
• Greatest Generation (1901 - 1927) 
• Silent Generation (1928 - 1945) 
• Baby boomers (1946 - 1964) 
• Generation X (1965 - 1980) 
• Millennials (1981 - 1996) 
• Generation Z (1997 - 2012ish) 
• Generation Alpha (early 2010s - present) 

Will we stick with the Greek alphabet for those who come after the current Alpha cohort, or will Gen Beta be one to get a more unique nickname. Depending on the state of the planet it could perhaps be something a tad more climate change related.

Have you ever referred to yourself by your generation moniker? Share your thoughts with our tech writer by emailing: [email protected].