A casual conversation about football between a grandfather and his six-year-old grandson has exposed a deeply concerning trend shaping the youngest generation. When Jonathan Margolis tried to convert his grandson, a Chelsea fan, to support Nottingham Forest, he showed him historic black-and-white footage of Forest's European Cup wins in the 1980s.
Within ten seconds, the child sneered, declared the footage "fake," and turned away. Despite Margolis's assurances that he had seen the matches live, the boy refused to believe him. This incident, occurring on Sunday 11 January 2026, sparked a chilling realisation about the world Generation Alpha – those born from 2010 onwards – are growing up in.
The Scepticism Paradox: From Clever to Gullible
Initially, Margolis admired his grandson's scepticism. However, he soon recognised a dangerous pattern. If children barely out of nappies dismiss anything unexpected as AI rubbish or "slop," we face a fundamental crisis of trust. This aligns with an old Yorkshire saying: "Them as believes nowt'll believe owt" – meaning those who believe nothing will believe anything.
This idea was famously restated in 1908 by the thinker GK Chesterton, who observed that rejecting mainstream beliefs doesn't make one more rigorous. Instead, it can leave a person vulnerable to conspiracy theories, mystical nonsense, and political fads. Margolis recalls a childhood memory that illustrates this: a schoolmate refused to believe there are 24 hours in a day, insisting night-time wasn't included, and accused him of trickery.
This, Margolis argues, is the weakness figures like Donald Trump understand. Convince naive people that real news is fake, and it becomes easy to persuade them that fake news is real. The internet distorted truth long before the AI boom, but artificial intelligence has escalated the problem dramatically.
Beyond Healthy Doubt: The Rabbit Hole of Blind Disbelief
The core issue is no longer just everyday reliance on AI. It's the automatic dismissal of anything unfamiliar as an AI fake. When children start doubting reliable sources and every TikTok video seems suspect, it may look like sophistication. But this path is a short hop from rational doubt to irrational paranoia, a modern equivalent of "witch-burning."
This creates an awkward dilemma for parents and educators. We need children to be sceptical, but not blindly so. The goal should be to teach critical thinking – how to differentiate good sources from bad. The fear, however, is that less discerning children might then be convinced by online "bad actors" that what they are taught in school is deliberately misleading, sending them down a dangerous rabbit hole.
Is There a Way Out?
Margolis suggests two potential rays of hope for the coming years. First, AI itself might develop a self-critical function, warning users to check alternative sources or consult other AI agents. Unlike humans, AI has no ego and wouldn't be "ashamed" to admit it's wrong.
The second hope lies in human nature itself. Every generation rebels against the last. Recent studies indicate that Gen Alpha is already showing a tendency to rely more on family and friends than on internet trends or recommendations from potentially corrupt or fake influencers. They also seem to prefer real-life experiences to living online.
If tomorrow's teenagers view today's screen fixation as a laughably dated trend, we might yet foster a saner future. A future where young people can distinguish real hoaxes from the current near-paranoid fear of fakes designed to make them look foolish.
