Voices Dr Vikram Sampath Utkarsh Amitabh Dr Alka Pande Ravi Shankar Dr Ramya Alakkal Mata Amritanandamayi THE new sunday express MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment october 11 2026 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Child’s Play F India’s Gen Alpha is rewriting childhood rules of learning, fun, tech, and family without Gen Z’s angst, anger, and alarm By Konkana Ray or generations of Indian children, play meant cricket in the back lane, village football in the fields, cycling around the neighbourhood until the streetlights came on; a board game with cousins, a Sunday afternoon spent making up games because there was absolutely nothing new to do. Then came the iPad kids, a generation associated with on-demand entertainment, streaming videos and games available at the tap of a screen. But for Generation Alpha, the children born entirely in the 21st century, the story is more complicated. Today, the stereotype of a child glued to a screen may be becoming as outdated as the idea that play has to happen outdoors. The difference between the generations is important. Millennials largely had an analogue childhood and encountered the internet as something that arrived. Gen Z grew up during the transition, moving from television and playgrounds to smartphones, social media, and streaming during their formative years. Gen Alpha has known no such before-and-after. For them, the digital world is part of the landscape in which childhood happens. Ask today’s children how they would spend a completely free day and the answers are less binary than adults might expect. There may be gaming, Instagram, a football match, a movie, a hobby LEGO , or UNO with friends, family time, food, making something—or several of these in the same afternoon. For Gen Alpha, leisure is less neatly divided into “screen time” and “playtime”. A Minecraft build can sit alongside a game of football; a YouTube tutorial can lead to an afternoon of crafting; a reel can inspire a dance routine; and a movie can simply be an excuse to meet friends and click pictures. Perhaps that is where our understanding of today’s child needs an update. We keep asking whether screens have replaced play when children themselves , do not necessarily see the two as opposites. The end of the iPad kid stereotype The reigning stereotype of the modern child is the glazed-over “iPhone kid”, locked in a dark room and endlessly scrolling. The emerging picture, however, is far more nuanced—and oddly comforting. Gen Alpha wants to spend its free time where the fun is. That place could be a high-resolution screen, an open playground, a darkened cinema hall or a friend’s colourful living room. They are demanding a “phygital” childhood, where digital and physical experiences coexist rather than compete. Sociologists studying digital childhood increasingly describe this as a blurring of social spaces: the local and the global, the physical and the virtual, the friend sitting next to you and the person you discover through a screen can all occupy the same social world. According to a 2026 Indian Gen Alpha study reported by Exchange4Media, about 70 per cent of parents noted that their children still prioritise outdoor games and physical activities alongside digital engagement. To understand what Indian children actually want from leisure, however, we need to first look at what they lack. Today’s childhood is often intensely scheduled, broken down into tuitions, extracurricular classes, sports academies and structured enrichment. Sometimes, children simply want newness—something that happens outside the timetable. Meghna Yadav, Child Psychologist at KLAY Preschools, says this is precisely why leisure matters. It is not simply a break from a child’s “real” activities; it is often where critical development happens. “When children play pursue , interests or spend time engaging in any activities without a fixed agenda, they practise decision-making, regulate emotions, build creativity and understand what gives them a sense of joy and competence,” she explains. “A child who has no time that is truly their own can begin to experience life as a continuous cycle of expectations.” There is an irony here. Older generations often imagine that children today have more freedom because they have more entertainment. Psychologists would make a different distinction: having endless options is not the same as having autonomy A child who can choose . between 50 videos but has every afternoon scheduled by adults may actually have less control over their leisure than a child who simply walked downstairs and figured out what to do. The physical dimension matters too. The American Academy of Paediatrics describes developmentally appropriate play as an important context for social-emotional, cognitive, language and self-regulation skills, while the World Health Organization recommends substantial daily physical activity for younger children. When fun has many faces Eight-year-old Avir Merchant from Mumbai thrives on variety much of it , enabled by his deeply involved family “I . love spending my day playing board games like UNO and Ludo, reading books, watching TV and making cookies with , my chachu (uncle),” he says. He also plays foosball, tennis, squash and cricket with friends, reads Dav Pilkey’s comics, gardens, plays Mahjong with his grandparents and explores new food with his family His favourite activity is cooking . with his uncle Nikhil. Family trips have taken him on safaris to see Asiatic lions in Gir and leopards in Udaipur. Screens are part of the mix, but hardly the whole picture. Weekend screen time is allowed, although Avir sometimes “wangles his way in” for 10 or 15 minutes of iPad time on weekdays. The contrast is telling: many Millennials experienced smartphones as an adolescent disruption; Gen Alpha has grown up with them as part of everyday life. Twelve-year-old Grihitha Vichare from Mumbai offers another challenge to the “screen-addicted” stereotype. An accomplished young mountaineer, she has completed more than 115 domestic and international expeditions, including Mount Everest Base Camp, Mount Kilimanjaro and Kedarkantha. “I would always choose to spend my time outdoors,” she says. “Being outdoors gives me a sense of peace and makes me feel happy fresh, and , energetic.” Beyond trekking, she draws, paints, swims, plays guitar, cycles and spends time with friends. Her father, Sachin Vichare, says she and her older sister would rather cycle, swim, trek and explore than visit malls or cinemas. Evenings are often spent at the local Krishna temple, where Grihitha helps with seva. But perhaps ‘screen time’ is itself too blunt a category “A decade ago, ‘screen . time’ almost always implied consumption,” says Saunak Ghosh, co-founder and CEO of TalentGum. “Today a growing , share of that time is spent creating, practising a skill, or connecting with an expert on the other side of the screen.” Children, he argues, are increasingly using devices to learn skills such as chess, music and coding, where progress is tangible. “The distinction between ‘screen time’ and ‘skill time’ may itself be largely an adult framework,” he adds. Nine-year-old Saanvi Gupta in New Delhi illustrates the point. Her ideal day involves friends, building a tent, watching a movie, painting and playing. She also uses YouTube tutorials to learn art, pausing videos and recreating them at home through cutting, pasting and crafting. Her mother, Pooja, points to a more practical reality: children still want to play outdoors, but safety concerns and both parents working can make unsupervised outdoor play difficult. Piano classes Turn to page 2 70 % of parents in a 2026 Indian Gen Alpha study reported that their children continue to prioritise outdoor games and physical activities alongside digital engagement 16 % is the number according to GWI’s latest Gen Alpha research, based on more than 20,000 children across international markets, found a rise since 2023 in the number of 8-15-year-olds putting a physical toy on their wish list 8 % is the rise in share of 8-15-year-olds since 2023, who say they play board games “a lot” 40 % of 12-15-year-olds say they take breaks from their devices, suggesting an offline recalibration rather than a retreat from digital life 28 % of 8-15-year-olds say going to a theatre is their preferred way to watch films, pointing to a renewed appeal for shared, offline entertainment Ai Generated