How Will Gen Alpha Shape the World We Haven’t Built Yet?

0:00At ThinkLab, we believe that research should do more than just spark ideas. It should create meaningful change. So for every survey completed, we plant a tree. That means that your insights don't just shape the future of the built environment, they help reforest it. It's quick, it's meaningful, and it starts with your voice. Simply click the link in the show notes to get involved in our latest research and grow something bigger than data. Let's design a better future together. Okay, here we go. Mic's on. Sound check's good. So that can only mean one thing. Season 8 of DNA starts now. Now you might think that the most digitally driven generation in history would want to live their lives entirely online.

0:57But what if the opposite is true? What if Gen Alpha's future depends on how we bring them together in person? Today, we explore just that. Welcome to Design Nerds Anonymous, the podcast that sparks curiosity at the intersection of business and design. I'm your host, Amanda Schneider, founder and president at ThinkLab and speaker now featured on TED.com. In this episode, we're talking with someone who spends his life looking around the corner at what's coming next. Mark McCrindle is one of the world's leading experts on generations. He's a demographer, a futurist, fellow TEDx speaker, who tracks the trends shaping how we live, work, and gather.

1:47The way these new generations think is already shaping the spaces we build. So whether you design them, furnish them, or just exist in them, what Mark has to say today might just change how you see our collective future. And in traditional DNA style, we kick things off by inviting our guests to introduce themselves. Plus, one word to describe the future they see coming. Meet Mark.

2:16Mark McCrindle:Mark McCrindle. I'm a social researcher based here in Sydney, Australia. and we look at demographics, generational change and emerging trends to get a handle on the future. And one word to describe the future I see is exciting with this new generation emerging. Let's dive right into your research. You've been doing this for a while. You've got so much data. So I always like to hear what our guests find most interesting. Firstly, the name Generation Alpha. The reason that I put that forward as the name for this next generation is obviously we'd worked our way through the alphabet we all know generation x which i'm one and then we had the millennials also called generation y and then we finished with generation z and by the time 2010 emerged we have a new generation because each of these generations spans 15 years and some people will say oh it must be generation a or it must be the click and go kids or the i-gen or something to do with their technology but look we're not going back to the start of the alphabet.

3:16Mark McCrindle:We don't want to define them by the technology that's here and now because this is a generation that'll live longer than any previous generation with the longevity booms that we're seeing. Most of them will live into the 22nd century. We don't want to define them by something that's a little blip in time at the moment right when they're being born. And we don't want to go back to the past because this is the first generation fully born in this 21st century. And that's why I said, we've got to have a new naming classification. Sequential naming works well, but let's move off the current alphabet, move to the Greek alphabet.

3:52Mark McCrindle:That's what we often do in science. And so we've got generation alpha from 2010 to 2024, and then generation beta born from this year, 2025 through to 2039. And the benefits of firstly, having a name that shifts us from what we had highlights that we're not going back to the past, it's the start of the new, the next. Secondly, by having 15-year spans of time, rather than just waiting for an event or a circumstance to say, all right, I think that marks the new generation. We should be a little bit more scientific, a bit more rigorous in our approach to generational assessment, and having set spans of years allows for that.

4:34Mark McCrindle:We've moved from a biological definition which a generation used to be was the span of time from when you're born to when you have children of your own. And if we apply that biological definition today, it's 30 years because that's the age of women having children. That's too long to think about a whole cohort in one generation. And so we've halved that to the 15-year span. And it also then allows us not only to compare generation by generation because they span the same length of births, but it allows us to prepare Therefore, the generation's coming because if we've got an alpha now, we've got a beta to come.

5:10Mark McCrindle:And if we've got a beta, then we're going to have a gamma and a delta. And so particularly for planners, for architects, for city developers, they can work out who will inhabit this school or this early learning center or this educational precinct because they can work out in 2040 or 2050, which the generation will be. and they can start to plan and give a name, give a context and give something tangible to the future generations by understanding who they are and the names. And it brings a human element to the future. That's why we're big advocates of the generational labeling, of the forward planning and of understanding the generations to come.

5:55We're just getting started. A quick pause for this short break and we'll be right back. We are at our best when we have an authentic, deep relationship with all of the people that we work with. When we are brought in early, when we are seen as a partner, that's when we can deliver our best and provide the best outcomes for everyone involved. Mannington Commercial is relationship-focused. We want to connect, and it's not just about flooring solutions. It's about how we all work together synergistically on all of the projects that we work on. It's not transactional. It's how can we really support the needs and the requirements with our full attention and our full suite of solutions, but really with the intent of making everything the best that it can possibly be.

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7:22All right, let's get back into it. Let's talk about that name a little bit, because something I read recently, not from you all, was nicknaming them Gen Polar because of the polarization that's happening. Have you heard that before? Help us debunk that myth.

7:40Mark McCrindle:Yes, I have heard that. We're in polarized times, but we don't want to just define a generation right now by the zeitgeist of the very moment because there are cultural moments that come and go and this is just one at the moment just like we didn't want to call them generation covid or the covidians as some how i call them just because covid was emerging as they were in their in their junior years of infant school it's too short-sighted and it's singular it's one-dimensional the trends that we're responding to now that are shaping this generation are multifactorial yes there are social trends.

8:19Mark McCrindle:But in their hands, we've got new technology and the technology trends are transformative. They're growing up in a world of AI, but it's not just technology. We don't want to call them the AI gen because it's also global trends that are shaping them. And then you've got demographic trends. We've got an aging population. We've got increasing cultural diversity globally. We've got significant shifts in terms of more generations alive and interacting than ever. And so it's the social trends, the technology ones, the global ones, and the demographic ones, and the technological ones. All of that comes together.

8:53Mark McCrindle:And in a multifactorial world influenced by global megatrends, we don't want to take a singular factor and put that label on a generation that are going to live into the 22nd century. That's a little bit short-sighted. I'm also interested in what the attitudes of this generation are going to be. Are you seeing any trend lines? Like this gen polar, I think in my mind comes from the idea that we're all fragmenting as a society. It's only one facet. So I don't want to label them that way either. But what are the characteristics that will define this generation, maybe different from other generations, or maybe these are some of the things that you've seen trending across millennials, Gen Z, that now are going to take shape in bigger ways in Gen Alpha?

9:39Mark McCrindle:Yeah, some good commentary on them because each generation is a reaction to the one that went before. Our times are not a, if you like, a one-way street where we're heading further and further down in the direction that we're seeing. It's more like a pendulum. Our society, the trends, they swing one way and then they correct and swing the other. And in a sense, therefore, a generation can be a polar to the one that went before. They can be a reaction to what they have seen. They bring a counter trend to the mainstream trends of their parents. And I think that's healthy in a society to just correct the balance and to bring a little bit more balance to maybe a time that we had seen.

10:17Mark McCrindle:They're also not only a reaction to the times and shaping it in their own way, but they are global in that empathy and in that connection. I think that's a positive thing. They're more aware of what's happening around the world. It's not just local trends or for that matter, local fashions that define them in a global world. It's not just Hollywood, it's Bollywood. It's not just the US music scene. It's K-pop coming out of Korea. It's not just Facebook or Instagram. It's TikTok out of China. It's global flows of influence and trends and social media and platforms. And that's part of the world that has shaped them rather than the West exporting culture.

10:54Mark McCrindle:It's now the East exporting popular culture and trends and cultural and culinary fashions as well. It's a generation influenced not just by what the experts say or their authority figures, but what the peer groups say. That social influence is very strong. They go for information, not to Google, to read an article, but to TikTok, to watch a short video. And from a peer group, not necessarily the proven experts. And then mobile in terms of lifestyle, where they'll work and study. They'll be multi career, not singular. They'll be post linear. It's not study and then work and then retirement. They'll mix that up.

11:29Mark McCrindle:They'll be plugged into education throughout their life as lifelong learners, and they'll have multiple careers. And beyond that, they're visual in how they consume content. And so the world of the designer and of the aesthetic matters even more for a generation that consumes content and makes decisions in a visual way rather than just a written or a cognitive pattern. pattern. And so there are global, visual, digital, social, mobile generation. And I think some of those factors of these times define them and will certainly define their future. I think one of the biggest conversations that is happening right now in my world is this digital versus physical.

12:11And I hate to say that as much as I hate to say Jen Poehler, but I think that this is a real friction that's happening right now. These younger generations that were raised as digital natives. Now Gen Alpha is going to be raised with AI and just always knowing that. What will the role of the physical environment be? And I think the tension that I'm seeing is with that pendulum swinging, some might feel that we've gone too far digital, especially with hybrid work, remote work. It's wonderful because we can connect literally from across the world as we're doing right now. But we still want these kids to want to show up in real life face-to-face.

12:48We don't want a ready player one scenario where the virtual world is so much better that we go into that to avoid the real world. So given everything that you're seeing in your work, what is your advice to those creating the built environment of tomorrow to make sure we still get them to show up face to face?

13:08Mark McCrindle:The good news is that this generation recognizes, as every previous generation did, that the future is a human centric one. that even in the future, the most valuable skills will be those people skills, will be those relational skills, will be the timeless human interaction skills. In fact, they are bringing a corrective to the digital obsession, and we're seeing that pendulum come back. This is the first generation of the digital era that have moved from tech optimism to tech skepticism. They see the downsides of technology. They see the impairment. They're the generation raised in a world of digital from their youngest years.

13:44Mark McCrindle:They began being born in 2010. That was the year that Instagram was launched and the iPad was released. So they've only ever known a world of the digital, of the visual platforms, of social media. And yet they're the first generation to start to use technology to control technology. They're dialing down the use of technology. They're seeing the addictive nature of even the language that is used to describe big tech now. It's not the tech optimists, the utopians of the past. It's the language that they used to describe big tobacco, getting an addictive product, almost commoditizing the users, selling attention.

14:18Mark McCrindle:And there's a nefarious perspective that Generation Alpha brings to the intent of technology companies. So they're clear-eyed about technology, about its mixed benefits for human flourishing. Yes, it brings positives, but certainly there are some downsides to it. I think that that skepticism, that healthy balance that they bring is great for the future because it means that the future for them will not be fully work from home, will not be fully virtual. They want that balance and they know that particularly as they're now starting their careers, and they'll be one in five workers in a decade, so they're fast entering the workplace right now.

14:56Mark McCrindle:They're going to need the network to develop the contacts and the mentorships. They're going to need to build those relationships collegiately and cross-generationally. A lot of that learning takes place when we gather as humans, when we're physically there. Those who get the new projects or the opportunities are those who show up. It is harder to delegate or to engage through the digital presence. If they fully work from home, they know that they will fall a little bit behind the development pathway, the opportunities, the network connections that the previous generation had. And they are on board with a hybrid future.

15:33Mark McCrindle:Yes, they want flexibility. They want to decouple work from location. They can do that because of the technology. But they also want to connect and gather and engage. And so I think bringing that balance to our work spaces, to our learning spaces, to our community spaces is going to be so important. And that really will give a reason for Gen Alpha to show up. It'll create the best of both of those worlds for the future. So one of the questions I get a lot whenever I even mention Gen Alpha is these kids are so young today. If you think about the earliest of which was born in 2010, they're 15. How do you in your research extrapolate what a 15-year-old is thinking about or a 10-year-old or even a five-year-old to understand what that might mean for the future workforce, for example?

16:21Mark McCrindle:Yeah, particularly because they're not even going to be hitting their leadership strides, their wealth accumulation, life stage, their influence until the middle of the century. So yes, we definitely need to bring our futurist hats forecast forward. As you said, the listeners here in a lot of the sector are developing products that's going to be hitting its life cycle in 40, 50, 60 years. And so we do need to forecast forward. But firstly, we know a lot about a generation and part of what defines generation is life stage. And so they are different to the adults because they're in their teenage years.

16:55Mark McCrindle:But that's not all that they are. That's not all each of us are by life stage because we're also who we are because of the times that shaped us. And even though we've all shared the life stage that they have had in terms of being young, being children, being teenagers, We weren't all shaped in that life stage in the 21st century in this world of technology, in this world of AI. And so that's meaning that their trajectory, their pathway, their education was different to ours. And that's leading to a differential from what we had. Not only are they being shaped in a different time, but they're emerging into a different era with new technologies.

17:29Mark McCrindle:They've been shaped with different experiences, different social markers, we call them, the values, the expectations on them are different to what we had. In other words, growing up in the 21st century was growing up in the 90s different to growing up in the 1970s. And so each generation is different because they're in a different life stage or age, but also because they were shaped in different times. They're emerging into different conditions. The different technologies and events and experiences that they share were different to what we shared. All of that creates significant differences across the generations and really creates those generations.

18:03Mark McCrindle:And so we can understand them by studying the times. by looking at the social expectations, by looking at the technology that's formative for them, by looking at the parenting styles that are shaping them. And that gives us a good handle on them. And so, yes, they're technologically savvy, more so than any previous generation. But they're also, as I mentioned, tech skeptical around that. Yes, they're growing up increasingly educated, the most educated generation in history from a formal education perspective. But also, their parents are wanting them to develop holistically and don't just see their future as more and more education.

18:39Mark McCrindle:They see that actually developing the soft skills and the life skills and the resilience, not just spending longer in an educational conveyor belt is key. We've seen a shift in parents from saying the future is technology, so robotics and coding, you need all that, to now saying actually you need to get outdoors and you need to develop those timeless human skills and you need to sometimes suffer failure and hardships are how we learn, not just the helicopter parent and giving everything to you. So we've even seen shifts in parenting that's bringing in those different and timeless character values.

19:13Mark McCrindle:So yeah, we can get a good understanding of them by just looking at what the last 10 or 15 years of parenting has shaped them in, how the times are shaping them, and therefore what trajectory they're emerging into. And that gives a reasonable handle on who they will be in the decade ahead as they move in significant force into the workplace. We'll be right back after this short break.

19:39I'm probably not alone or isolated in feeling that right now there's so much that we could choose to worry about and things feel really uncertain. What I find is that when we think about and spend time imagining the future, it can actually calm some of those fears. It can actually do something. What we're trying to do is catalyze action so when you see and feel and can touch the future in your mind, it inspires you to want to do something today to shape it. That's the entire point. Spending time thinking and discussing gives us the opportunity to shape that better future that we're all hoping for.

20:15I'm Kaylin Reed, applied insight strategist, certified futurist, and host of the Alternative Design podcast. We started Alternative Design as a beacon of hope for our industry at a time when the world was no longer business as usual. At Kimball International, the future isn't something that we wait for. We search for it.

20:41Thanks for sticking with us.

20:43Mark McCrindle:Now, let's return to the ideas shaping the future. I'm curious to dive into how you would recommend our listeners leverage this generational research. Because in some cases in the past, I think especially with millennials, this generational conversation was almost weaponized. It was stereotyping them to say this is what they want. And it led to this feeling of for them to get this, then somebody older has to give up this. So give advice to our audience, especially knowing that they're trying to construct these environments. Why is this research so helpful and how should they be thinking about it?

21:20Mark McCrindle:Firstly, we need to understand the complexity, the nuance, the subtleties here, and not just stereotype, not just put all of these globally 2.1 billion generation alphas into the one category, because of course there's massive variance within and there's similarities across the generations. But also understand that there's contradictions within a generation here. Like they're growing up as the largest demographic in the history of the world, 2.1 billion. There are 2.9 million births taking place every week globally, right? So this is a big generation. And yet they're growing up in an aging society because there's a longevity boom in most countries.

22:01Mark McCrindle:And even in the emerging nations, there's a declining birth rate. It's a time of massive growth of young people and yet an aging population of significant demographic increase, the largest in history and yet a declining birth rate of a generation growing up as the most technological, even at the time that they push back on technology. That growing up as global citizens, that global influence defines them. And yet we're seeing rising nationalism and a connection of what it means to belong and to identify within a nation state. So these are some of the complexities and contradictions we need to understand about their times and about this generation and not take a simplistic view that it's the TikTok generation that are sort of a little bit lightweight.

22:44Mark McCrindle:They're not digging deep and, hey, we need help for the future because there's no resilience anymore. That does not understand the true strengths of this generation and the true depth of the complexity and characteristics of them. So I'd say the first step for the older generations is to understand this younger generation, because with understanding comes empathy, comes a connection, comes the ability to engage and communicate. Secondly, we need to understand them, not so we can just communicate with them or put something to them. We've got to engage and connect in that collegiate sense. We've got to not push something on them, but engage with them and get them to help shape something.

23:26Mark McCrindle:In other words, the generations used to be hierarchical. The older generations with the experience and the knowledge used to pass that on to the younger generations. The older generations were the leaders. The younger generations were the new entrants. But now we're seeing a shift from that stratification where we've got a mix of generations connected. We've got flatter structures. Even in the household, the younger generations, the kids have a bit more empowerment and often are shaping even parental decisions as to which school they go to or what car is put to where they go on holiday. We're seeing an empowerment of a new generation.

23:57Mark McCrindle:It's young people in our society that are driving the popular culture, that are determining the emerging platforms, that advertisers are trying to understand. In other words, they have asymmetrical power, influence, even economic power beyond their own earnings. And so that means we've got to move away from hierarchical structures to more empowering platforms, listening, connecting across the generations, not just down those hierarchies. And the final thing I would say is that if we listen to engage, if we connect across the generations rather than have that hierarchical sense, is to give real voice to this generation, is to recognize the strengths.