Generation Alpha and digital competence: teaching critical thinking in a changing school system

Abstract

Pedagogical reflection on how early exposure to incessant information flows, the rarefaction of physical interactions and the progressive dematerialisation of relational experiences contributes to generating an unprecedented existential condition is prompted by the fact that Generation Alpha, immersed since birth in hypermedia digital ecosystems, has arrived. Digital competence must be considered not just a technical skill, but also a profound form of epistemic and ethical-social responsibility. It is a matter of accessibility and social justice that can counteract cultural and gender bias. In dialogue with the new 2025 National Guidelines, this reflection restores to schools the central task of preserving a human dimension in the age of virtualisation, by valuing intergenerational responsibility and the ethical co-construction of communal living.