A certain decline in the image of Silicon Valley and its exponents is beginning to be perceived also in Italy, even among young people who are the main users of digital platforms. In the research conducted by SWG for Italian Tech among the boys between the ages of 18 and 30, there is a sobering ranking. Who can be an icon for young people ?, was the question. Fourteen names suggested, well-known personalities, including Cristiano Ronaldo and Lady Gaga, each bearer of a story and certain values. Among the exponents of the technological world the first in the ranking is Bill Gates, founder and guide of Microsoft for a long time, at the forefront of the fight against covid and climate change: everyone knows him, young people, but he only comes sixth. In seventh place Elon Musk, the most ingenious and unpredictable innovator of our times, pioneer with the Tesla of the electric car, and with SpaceX of the return to space travel. In tenth place Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world thanks to the fact that with Amazon he built the largest shopping mall on the planet. There comes a tie Mark Zuckerberg, who is also younger, and is the owner of two platforms used very much by children, Instagram and Whatsapp: they don’t like it. Instead, in the first places we find instead in the order Bebe Vio, Barack Obama, Greta Thunberg, Liliana Segre and Samantha Cristoforetti.
It is an Olympus that makes us reflect on how our children think about the world: money is not the main value, it is not power, it is not even entrepreneurship. Looking at the 5 favorites, one would think that the most important talent is courage, the courage to fight battles for a fairer world and to resist abuse. The courage that sometimes they seem not to have but which they obviously appreciate. Among other things, those who say that science and technology also create problems are more numerous among young people than among adults. Are we sure we know our children?
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