By Irshad Ahmad Mughal
I am a man well into my fifties. I have lived long enough to watch the world transition from analog simplicity to digital complexity. I thought I had seen it all, but a recent, deeply immersive experience has shaken my understanding of human behavior to its very core.
For the past week, I did not just observe the upcoming generation from a distance; I lived with them. I was embedded with an Under-14 football team from Pakistan traveling to compete in the prestigious IberCup 2026. We shared hotel rooms, traveled on the same trains, ate at the same tables, and slept in the same quarters. These children represent the oldest tier of Generation Alpha—the wealthy, educated future of our nation.
What I witnessed over those seven days was not just a gap between generations. It was a complete, terrifying mismatch in lifestyle—a profound disconnection from physical reality that should alarm every parent, educator, and policymaker.
The Fragmented Coexistence
The first striking anomaly is how these children occupy physical space. The concept of fellowship has been entirely re-engineered. I watched four or five boys sit tightly together on a single couch, yet there was a complete absence of human connection. They were physically adjacent but mentally separated by light-years, each glued to their own screen.
Face-to-face conversation is treated almost as an archaic discomfort. If they want to communicate with someone sitting a mere two feet away, they prefer to do it via social media apps. Even more jarring is the absolute fragmentation of their shared spaces. In our youth, a group gathering meant shared storytelling or a unified game. Today, even when sitting together, there is no common ground. One boy is immersed in a specific mobile game, another is scrolling through short-form videos, and a third is lost in an entirely different digital pocket. They are together, yet profoundly, deeply alone.
The Blindness to the Horizon
During our journey across Europe, the trains and buses glided past some of the most breathtaking landscapes imaginable. For anyone of my generation, it would be impossible to tear one’s eyes away from the window. For these children, the world outside simply did not exist. The physical earth has been relegated to mere background noise, an inconvenient void between Wi-Fi hotspots.
More concerning than their constant screen usage is how they consume media. Their tolerance for sustained attention is practically nonexistent. I watched their eyes dart rapidly as their thumbs flicked upward in a relentless rhythm of scrolling. If a video or a scene does not deliver an instant dopamine spike within two seconds, it is aggressively swiped away. They have developed a total intolerance for context. By bypassing the time it takes to build a narrative or understand a complete idea, they are systematically losing the cognitive capacity for deep comprehension. They do not read the room, the landscape, or the context; they only read the feed.
High-Priced Trash and Defying Nature
As elite youth athletes competing on a global stage, one would assume these children respect the mechanics of physical fitness. The reality is quite the opposite. They live in open rebellion against the laws of nature. The foundational wisdom of “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” has been completely discarded.
Even past 2:00 AM, the dark hotel rooms remained illuminated by the cold blue glow of smartphone screens hidden beneath blankets. They willingly sacrifice sleep, recovery, and physical health for late-night digital consumption. Despite being gifted athletes, their bodies lack the robust fitness and resilience they should possess, primarily because their circadian rhythms are constantly disrupted.
This disregard for bodily well-being extends heavily to their diet. I was astonished by their food choices. They actively gravitate toward low-quality, highly processed, nutritionally bankrupt food. However, there is a catch: it must be expensive. The nutritional value of the food is irrelevant to them; what matters is the trendy packaging, the viral brand name, and the premium price tag. They are quite literally purchasing high-priced garbage simply to satisfy the aesthetic of modern consumption.
Unbridled Freedom and the Failure of Elite Education
What troubles me most as an elder is their casual, careless attitude and their skewed priorities. These children are receiving an education at some of the most expensive private elite schools in Pakistan—institutions where tuition fees run into a small fortune. Yet, I found myself constantly questioning what this exorbitant expenditure is actually producing.
We see a generation demanding unbridled, absolute freedom, but with zero appetite for accountability or respect. Traditional values, social etiquette, and the concept of authority have been utterly erased from their worldview. When an adult, a guide, or a coach speaks to them, they do not see a figure worthy of respect or a source of wisdom; they see an annoying interruption to their screen time. They look at life through a digital lens: if they encounter a boundary, a rule, or an authority figure they dislike, they attempt to “swipe it away” or “block” it in real life by completely tuning out.
A Warning to Society
Living in the trenches with Gen Alpha for a week was an eye-opening, sobering experience. We are pampering our children with the finest luxuries, paying millions for elite schooling, and handing them the world on a silver digital platter. But in doing so, we are creating a generation of sleep-deprived, physically compromised, emotionally detached individuals who cannot function without a digital crutch.
This is a quiet crisis unfolding in real time. If we do not actively intervene—if we do not force them to look up from their screens, appreciate the horizon, respect their bodies, and acknowledge the value of real human authority—we will soon find ourselves dealing with a generation that is entirely unequipped to face the harsh, unpredictable realities of the actual world. It is time for parents and educators to step in before the screen consumes our future entirely.
