Do you know that more than 2.5 million Alphas are born every week and by 2025 there will be almost two billion of them? Born to digital technology like it’s the fifth element of nature, Alphas will be the wealthiest, most intensely educated, and the most dynamic generation that human society has yet seen.
There will be profound implications for the basic mechanics of modern life worldwide, transformed by the different ways in which people behave as consumers and workers, as learners and social creatures. Alphas will bring challenges and dangers as well as new hope.
First of all, the fundamental characteristic of the Alphas will be their relationship with IT. They’re born into it, not as a new development, an experiment and stumbling innovation, a toy to grapple with, but as a fully-formed service. An IT-enhanced life, mediating everyday roles and demands via a digital device, is already the norm for them. And this means changes in people’s psychological and physical relationships with the world, the assumption that interactions will be simple, easy, and instant.
The wealth will come not only from the vigor of digital technologies and related business but also from the fact there will be fewer of the Alphas. Each will, in principle, be financially better off per capita, and more in demand as both consumers and as the talent for employers. This will be in contrast to the experiences of embattled Generations Y and Z, the first to be less well off than their parents.
Another essential feature of Alphas will be their longevity. They will take longer to take on adult responsibilities, stay in education for longer periods, join the workforce later, and have children later. Many more will become ‘centenarians’.