What’s It Like To Be A Gen A Kid At GWPS?

Gaming, playdates, entertainment, sport, school…. Oh how times have changed. Kids now are evolving and rapidly changing.  Press Gang PLUS has been investigating what’s going on with Gen A… here are our findings. 

Phone Use

Do you know what kids do on their phone every single day? Kids these days enjoy chatting, gaming, staying in touch with parents and friends, social media and watching youtube.

They can do that anywhere they go because 84% of Stage 3 kids at GWPS have their own phone.

According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, students should have no more than two hours of screen time per day. But one GWPS student we spoke to said they spend at least five hours a day on their phone.

In the survey, we asked Stage 3 students what they use their phones for. They said; gaming (93%), Social media (79%), staying in touch with parents (86%), messaging friends (79%) , group chat (82%) and watching YouTube (86%).

TV

In 1956 Australia got its first TV station. But since then there have been humongous changes. From the old times,  when there was a specific time you would need to turn on the TV to watch your favourite TV show (and if you missed it too bad), to the new times, when you can watch your favourite show anywhere, anytime. Netflix, Disney Plus, YouTube – I’m telling you, from generation to generation, everything changes.

In 2023 children spend hours on their phones, iPads and laptops, but what are they watching? In the Stage 3 survey, we discovered that a lot of students watch TV for five hours a day. A small percentage of students watch more than 30 hours of TV a week. 

Popular TV shows with Stage 3 students include; Sponge Bob, Demon Slayer, Young Sheldon, Teen Titans,
Power Rangers, Full House and Stranger Things. My favorite TV show is Cake or Fake, because it makes you feel like, “oh my gosh i want to know so bad,” and their creativity is incredible.

Sport 

Soccer, a worldwide sport played almost everywhere, is also the most popular sport at GWPS.  Believe it or not, soccer beat basketball by a 25 per cent. Press Gang PLUS used a poll to find all this information from GWPS. 

Soccer also helps build fitness and character.  In a talk given by, Dr. R Ghildiyal, a psychiatry professor, he supported the idea that sport helps students stay fit, but also helps the mental health of people.  This is important to help keep students focused on work, build good friendships and stay fit.

Here’s why GWPS students love soccer. 

“It’s fun and takes skill.”

“I play football all the time and I like playing it with my friends.”

“it is fun to play with other people.“

Sport video games

In video game history, sport video games have been some of the most popular games ever. According to the e-sports community, The FIFA series have some of the most entertaining and interesting video games to be made in sport video games history. According to a survey given to Stage 3 students,  more than 75% of them play video games and most of those Stage 3 students prefer sport video games over normal video games.

Stationary

80% of stage 3 GWPS students love stationary. Guildford West students voted the most votes for pencils. The second most favourite stationery items are pens and highlighters. 

The pencil has been proven mightier than a pen. Most people say that pencils are mightier than pens because pens run out of ink while pencils you can sharpen. If you make a mistake while writing with a pencil you can use an eraser to remove the mistake.

While writing with a pen and you make a mistake you cannot erase the mistake so it will last on the paper. Pens are permanent with ink but pencils have a special lead inside witch is erasable. Pencils are like white board markers but on paper. 

We asked children about stationary and here is what they said

“I think sometimes you can get different things and they look really nice and just the creativity.”

“You can use it for work and other stuff. I like drawing and also I’ll use highlighters for underlining.”