With news of the landmark March 2026 trial resulting in Meta and Google being found negligent for social media harm to a child, parents may be feeling fresh worry about their children’s digital habits.
Gen Alpha (which encompasses children born between 2010 and 2025) is the first generation of children to grow up fully online, meaning they have never known a world that wasn’t fully online and connected. They have been connected to digital technology at the earliest age of any generation, with most interacting with screens since infancy.
As with all changes that each generation has faced, there are pros and cons to Gen Alpha’s reliance on and exposure to a chronically online world. Those cons include potential risks to children, as the lawsuit shows, but at the same time, online platforms are a part of many people’s lives. So how can parents keep their kids safe on social platforms?
We talked to experts to find out. Here are five key insights that experts told Mom.com about navigating the online world with their Gen Alpha kids — and honestly, some of the advice surprised us.
1. The Majority of Social Connections Should Always Happen IRL First
The most important rule of social connection for Gen Alpha? That it primarily happens offline, says Zak Ringelstein, co-founder and CEO of Zigazoo, a kidSAFE-certified social network app specifically designed for kids.
“That’s something that probably no CEO of a tech company is going to say,” he adds with a slight laugh. “But I think it’s so important to say that kids should be social offline first, and they need to be spending more time being social offline than online.”
It’s a basic principle, but one that’s easy to forget: humans are social creatures, and we need that in-person connection to thrive. Online connections can support and enhance social development, but should never serve as the primary source of connection.
2. Gen Alpha Knows Tech Boundaries Are Important—And Wants Them
The next insight that Ringelstein, as well as , educator and social worker, national expert of youth development, mom of two Gen Alpha children, and author of How We Thrive: Caring for Kids and Ourselves in a Changing World as well as the best-selling, Whole Child, Whole Life: 10 Ways to Help Kids Live, Learn, and Thrive, provided validated what I have personally found true of my own Gen Alpha kids: they are deeply and somewhat surprisingly aware that unchecked screen access is not good for them.
For example, two of my Gen Alpha teens will regularly — and all on their own — go on digital detoxes from Snapchat and report that the break always makes them feel better. They also don’t fight me on the time limits I’ve established on their phones, because they admit that they are helpful in stopping the scroll.
Gen Alpha is smart (definitely smarter than some of their parents who spent time in unmonitored chat rooms sharing our ages with men whose usernames were probably baldbutlooking4fun), and as such, they know on an instinctual level what’s good for them, and what makes them feel worse.
Shana Westlake, a Gen Alpha mom, echoed how Gen Alpha is more insightful about a lot of things, screen time included.
“I have a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old, and I think they’re more self-aware than I was at that age,” she notes. “They’re able to recognize things about themselves that took me years to realize.”
The point being, don’t be afraid to talk to your kids about why safeguards and limits exist — and if possible, bring them in on the conversation. You may be surprised at how much they agree with your boundaries.
3. Tech Platforms That Say Keeping Adults Out is Impossible Are Probably Lying
In our conversation, Ringelstein was adamant that it is very possible to create kid-only safe social platforms, a fact that seems all the more eye-opening in the wake of the Meta lawsuit ruling.
“There should not be adults in kid spaces, as there are in Roblox and on TikTok,” he says firmly. “It’s not okay. There’s no excuse for that. We have the technology to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”
He pointed out that as parents, we wouldn’t send our middle schoolers out to a club in downtown Manhattan at 3 a.m., yet with many traditional social media apps, tech companies are allowing exactly that to happen in an online format. Ringelstein believes that the new norm should center around online platforms designed solely for kids, with their safety and well-being in mind.
“It is possible to build safe tools for kids that are also fun,” Ringelstein maintains.
4. Gen Alpha is Creative, and Online Platforms Can Foster That
All of the experts we spoke to confirmed the same key defining characteristic about Gen Alpha: they are an incredibly creative group of kids.
“Gen Alpha, in many ways, are some of the strongest and most powerful young people that we have seen,” says Krauss. While acknowledging the challenges their generation has seen, like the pandemic and political divides, she points out that “we still see all of their incredible capacities for connecting with others and being creative and being playful.”
Part of their ability to connect and be creative comes through digital formats, like making videos, sharing videos, audio, and photos, and getting inspiration from online sources, whether that’s an influencer or even Pinterest.
“Gen Alpha is a generation of creators,” adds Ringelstein. “They’re not afraid to create. Creating videos in particular and then sharing those videos with their friends is actually a really high-level task to perform, and they also do it almost without fear, which I think is actually really awesome.”
Ringelstein, Cofounder and Director of Digital Wellness at Zigazoo, also points out that Gen Alpha’s comfort level with connectedness can be empowering. For instance, online platforms can provide Gen Alpha with the opportunity to share some of the values that they care deeply about, such as kindness, inclusion, and social responsibility.
“Gen Alpha kids often feel empowered to use their voice to stand up for themselves and others,” she notes.
5. The Goal is to Teach Kids How to Use Tech Safely
It can be tempting to get overwhelmed trying to navigate online platforms with our kids and give up with an all-or-nothing approach. But Ringelstein stresses that the goal is not to ban our kids completely from being online, but to help gently guide them to use technology tools in positive ways, all while teaching them how to benefit from social platforms and identify potential risks.
He suggests first approaching platforms from a content-first strategy. Is it kid-safe? Are there adult users? What protections are in place? Will the algorithm purposefully push potentially harmful content because views matter more than safety?
He explains that many traditional social platforms, like Meta or TikTok, do tend to “reward” sensational content because it gets more views and prolonged engagement, with limited filters for who’s consuming the content, like kids or teens.
Every parent and family can decide what works best for them, but in a world where technology and online connectedness certainly aren’t disappearing anytime soon, it can help parents to know that the tide might be turning.
There is more attention being placed on kids’ safety on tech and social platforms, so these types of conversations are important to have with each other—and our kids.
