Dr. A. K. Merchant*
More than two billion children worldwide face a future shaped by screens, social media, and rapidly advancing artificial intelligence. This new reality brings extraordinary opportunities but also serious risks for young minds, families, and schools.
Children make up a large share of the global population: roughly 2.05 billion aged 0–14, and over 2.4 billion if we include everyone under 18. From toddlers who swipe tablets to preteens who prefer short videos over reading, digital devices are now woven into daily life from an early age. More than 90 percent of parents of Gen Alpha children report that their kids regularly use tablets or smartphones by the age of four.
Generation Alpha (born ~2010–2024) and Generation Beta (beginning 2025) are the first true digital natives. They have never known a world without streaming, social media, or AI tools that can do schoolwork for them. Studies and teacher reports point to a worrying trend: attention spans are shrinking, and classroom focus is eroding. One estimate places the typical Gen Alpha attention span at about 8 seconds, roughly half that of earlier generations. Educators overwhelmingly say they need more training to teach these students effectively.
Psychologists call the effect of constant short-form stimulation “popcorn brain”—a restless, jumpy mental state produced by rapid, dopamine-rich content. Excessive social media use has been linked to reduced attention, impaired memory, and weaker decision-making, all of which make sustained learning harder.
Standardized assessments show declines in reading and math across many countries. For example, recent U.S. national testing and international assessments have recorded historic drops in student performance. In some regions, the decline in scores is comparable to losing an entire year’s worth of learning.
In India, the ASER 2024 report shows only a minority of early-grade students can read texts or perform basic arithmetic at expected levels. Across the European Union, a growing share of 15-year-olds now fall below minimum competency thresholds in math, reading, and science—trends that predate the pandemic but were worsened by it.
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can produce essays and solve problems in seconds. Surveys indicate widespread student use: by 2024, about 90 percent of U.S. students had used ChatGPT for homework. While some students and educators see benefits, many worry that AI short-circuits the learning process—students may skip the mental effort required to analyze, organize, and argue, thereby failing to build essential cognitive skills. Writing an essay is not just about producing words on a page. It’s about wrestling with an idea, organizing thoughts, and learning to argue clearly. When AI does that work for you, the brain never builds those muscles.
From the viewpoint of the Bahá’i Faith, technology must be guided by moral and spiritual principles. AI is a powerful tool for synthesizing information, but it cannot make moral choices or replace the ethical education. The source of spiritual training comes from the Divine Educators, primary link between humanity and the ultimate Reality, that unknowable essence of essences invoked as Parameshwara, God, Allah, Vaheguru, Yahweh, et al. They have appeared from Age to Age and Their teachings have galvanized and refined humankind’s capacity to achieve spiritual success together with social progress. No wonder, then leaders and representatives have come together and along with technology experts and corporate heads including tech giants Microsoft, IBM, Cisco besides others, issued in January 2023, the Rome Call for AI Ethics at the Vatican. Subsequently, in July 2024 in Hiroshima this was endorsed by all other dharmic aka religious traditions. Rather than being a legally binding treaty, it serves as a public moral commitment centered around “algorethics”—the deliberate integration of ethics into the design of algorithms
All concerned parties are urged to uphold the necessity for a unified ethical framework to govern AI’s development and use, mindful that spiritual teachings can help steer technological progress toward justice, equity, and human flourishing. Some governments and schools are already acting. Smartphone bans and “digital pause” programs in parts of Europe and elsewhere have shown promising results: improved concentration, better social interaction during breaks, and modest gains in academic performance. These measures suggest that thoughtful limits can help children refocus.
Although AI was first talked about as early as the late 1970s it has now become an inseparable aspect of daily living impacting every man, woman, youth and child. Therefore, some practical recommendations include: (i) Setting clear limits on screen time, especially for young children; (ii) Prioritizing hands-on learning and activities that build sustained attention; (iii) Teaching digital literacy and ethics, so that students understand when and how to use AI responsibly; (iv) Supporting teachers with training tailored to the needs of digital-native students; (v) Encouraging family bonding through reading together, playing board games, walking, to suggest just a few, all of which foster conversations and attention without screens.
Generation Alpha and Beta are not doomed. They are bright, adaptable, and capable of thriving if adults act responsibly. The solution is not to reject technology but to shape its role in children’s lives: limit distractions, strengthen classroom practices, teach ethical use of AI, and reclaim simple, meaningful moments that build attention and character. Those small, old-fashioned interactions—reading aloud, playing a game, taking a walk—may prove among the most powerful educational tools that every parent and teacher still has.
In the years and decades ahead, Bahá’is strongly believe advancements of (AI) when grounded upon the ethical framework would definitely help humanity to expand the possibilities and limits for material and physical well-being and establish a sound foundation for a harmonious, united and prosperous civilization. The Bahá’i Writings state: “Had humanity seen the Divine Educators of its collective childhood in their true character, as agents of one civilizing process, it would no doubt have reaped incalculably greater benefits from the cumulative effects of their successive missions. This, alas, it failed to do.” As a result, “human character, is debased, there is disillusionment everywhere, the nerves of discipline are relaxed, the voice of human conscience is stilled, the sense of decency and shame is obscured, conceptions of duty, of solidarity, or reciprocity and loyalty are distorted, and the very feeling of peacefulness, of joy and hope get extinguished.” “The Bahá’i Faith regards the current world confusion and calamitous condition in human affairs as a natural phase in an organic process leading ultimately and irresistibly to the unification of the human race in a single social order whose boundaries are those of the planet.”
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*The writer is a social worker, independent researcher, & member of the Bahá’i Community of India. Views expressed are personal.
