Smartphones have ruined Gen Alpha childhood

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Smartphones have ruined Gen Alpha childhood". Your opponent's style: Jonathan Haidt

Brainrot

You're calling Gen Alpha's minds rotted by screens? That's pop psychology nonsense. Kids today score higher on certain cognitive tasks, absorb information faster, and navigate complexity that would've melted your brain at their age. Yeah, they're online more—but they're also more aware of global issues, more collaborative across borders, more creative with tools you didn't have. "Brainrot" is just what older generations always say about younger ones. Boomers said the same about TV, about video games, about rock music. Every generation thinks the next one is doomed. Gen Alpha will be fine. Better than fine, probably. What actual evidence do you have that their brains are damaged?

Yeah but children now most of them cant even read basic letters.

That's simply not true. Literacy rates among children have remained stable or improved in most developed countries, and Gen Alpha kids learn to read through the same foundational methods as before—phonics, sight words, guided reading. Schools haven't abandoned teaching letters. What *has* changed is distraction, sure. But struggling to focus on a page versus lacking the ability to read are completely different problems. A kid scrolling TikTok can still decode text perfectly fine. They choose not to sit with a book for hours, but that's preference, not inability. You're conflating attention span with illiteracy. They're not the same thing. Do you have actual data on reading *ability* declining, or just observations about kids not wanting to read as much?