whatsmygeneration

Generation Alpha: born 2013 to 2024

Gen Alphas are 2 to 13 years old in 2026. Boundaries are debated. 2013 to 2024 is the range most sources use, but Pew has not defined it and some say 2010 to 2025.

Born 2013 to 2024? You’re

Gen Alpha

2013 to 2024ages 2 to 13 in 2026

Boundaries debated

Swiped a screen before learning to read.

whatsmygeneration.com Range varies by source

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Who counts as Gen Alpha

Anyone born from 2013 to 2024 inclusive. In 2026 that means people aged 2 to 13. Within the range, the calculator also tells you where you sit: early Gen Alpha is 2013 to 2016, core Gen Alpha is 2017 to 2020, late Gen Alpha is 2021 to 2024. The first and last two years of any generation are cusp years, and the result says so.

Generation Alpha is the cohort born, in the most common definition, from 2013 to 2024: the first generation born entirely in the twenty-first century and, for the most part, the children of Millennials. The boundaries are debated. Pew Research Center has not defined the generation at all, the Australian demographer who named it dates it 2010 to 2024, and other sources say 2013 to 2025. This site uses 2013 to 2024, labels it as debated on every result, and flags 2011 to 2014 as cusp years with Gen Z.

What is not debated is what shaped them. The iPad launched in 2010, so Gen Alpha are the first children for whom a touchscreen was in the house from birth. YouTube Kids arrived in 2015, voice assistants in 2014, and Covid-19 closed daycare centres and kindergartens in 2020 when the oldest were 7. The oldest members were 9 when ChatGPT was released in 2022, which means generative AI will be an ordinary school tool for the whole cohort rather than a novelty that arrived in adulthood.

In 2026 Gen Alpha is between 1 and 13 years old, so most of what gets written about the generation is prediction rather than record. It is a smaller cohort in the United States than Gen Z, because US births fell from about 3.95 million in 2013 to about 3.6 million in 2024, even though it is likely the largest generation ever globally.

← Gen Z Gen Alpha Gen Beta →

What shaped Gen Alphas: 6 points of context

Era facts rather than personality claims. Nobody is a stereotype, but everyone born in these years shared the same news, tools and prices at the same age.

  • iPad natives

    The iPad launched in April 2010 and by 2013 tablets were in a majority of US households with children. Gen Alpha is the first generation whose earliest screen memory is a touchscreen rather than a television, and the first raised alongside YouTube Kids (2015) and algorithmic children’s video. Whether that is good or bad is argued about; that it happened is not.

  • A pandemic where childhood milestones should have been

    Covid-19 hit in 2020 when Gen Alpha was between 0 and 7. Preschool and kindergarten happened on video calls or not at all, birthdays were drive-bys, and the youngest members spent their first year seeing adults mostly in masks. Reading and maths scores for the affected cohorts dropped measurably in the 2022 national assessments.

  • Children of the first internet generation

    Most Gen Alpha parents are Millennials, who grew up online themselves and documented their children’s childhoods on the same platforms, sometimes from the first ultrasound. Gen Alpha is the first cohort with a large digital footprint that predates its own consent, a fact that will matter more as it grows up.

  • AI as a school supply

    ChatGPT was released on 2022-11-30 when the oldest Gen Alpha were 9 and the youngest not yet born. Voice assistants had already been answering their questions since Alexa (2014) and Google Home (2016). This is the first generation for which asking a machine a question in plain language is not new technology but part of the furniture.

  • The screen-time reckoning

    Gen Alpha is growing up during the pushback: phone bans in schools spread across US states and several countries from 2023, and Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (2024) made the case that smartphone childhoods harm mental health. Whatever the science settles on, Alpha’s childhood is being shaped by rules written in reaction to Gen Z’s.

  • Smaller at home, bigger worldwide

    US births fell every year from 2015 to 2020 and have not recovered, so Gen Alpha will be a smaller American generation than Gen Z. Globally the opposite is true: McCrindle estimates about 2 billion Gen Alpha births by 2025, driven by population growth in Africa and South Asia, which would make it the largest generation in history.

Formative technology and events

Technology that arrived in childhood or early adulthood
  • The iPad (2010) and tablets as first screens
  • YouTube Kids (2015) and streaming children’s television
  • Voice assistants: Alexa (2014), Google Home (2016)
  • Roblox and Minecraft as social spaces
  • Chromebooks and remote schooling tools
  • Generative AI: ChatGPT (2022) from primary school onward
Events shared at the same age
  • The Covid-19 pandemic and closed schools (2020 to 2021)
  • The release of ChatGPT (2022)
  • School phone bans spreading from 2023
  • The hottest years on record, 2023 and 2024
  • The 2024 US presidential election, the first most will remember

Where the name comes from

Mark McCrindle, an Australian social researcher, proposed “Generation Alpha” after a 2008 survey in which respondents were asked what should follow Z. His reasoning was that the Latin alphabet had run out, so the next generation should start the Greek one, and that a fresh alphabet suited the first generation born entirely in a new century. McCrindle dates Alpha 2010 to 2024. Pew Research Center has not defined a range; most other references use 2013 to 2024 or 2013 to 2025. Because there is no consensus, this site marks Alpha as “boundaries debated” wherever it appears.

Gen Alpha or Gen Z? Gen Alpha or Gen Beta? The cusp years

Born 2013 or 2014? Pew’s range puts you in Gen Alpha, but you are within 2 years of Gen Z’s last year (2012), so sources that draw the line later would call you Gen Z. Type your year above and the calculator says which side of the line you fall on and how far from it.

Born 2023 or 2024? You are late Gen Alpha by Pew, and within 2 years of Gen Beta’s first year (2025); some sources start Gen Beta earlier.

Check any year in the calculator

Generation Alpha: questions people ask

Is someone born in 2010, 2011 or 2012 Gen Alpha or Gen Z?
Gen Z, under the Pew definition used here, which ends Gen Z at 2012. Under McCrindle’s definition Alpha starts in 2010, so those years are the most contested on the whole timeline. The calculator gives Gen Z, and flags 2011 and 2012 as cusp years with Alpha.
Who named Generation Alpha?
Mark McCrindle, an Australian demographer, after a survey in 2008. He chose Alpha because the Latin alphabet ended at Z and because a new alphabet suited a generation born wholly in the twenty-first century.
What generation comes after Gen Alpha?
Generation Beta, proposed for births from 2025 onward. It is an emerging label with no agreed end year, and it may not survive contact with reality; generation names sometimes stick (Millennial) and sometimes do not (iGen).