Beauty, Wealth, And Fame: The Future Life Imagined by Italian Preadolescents

The purpose of the quali-quantitative research, conducted in the spring of 2021 (still during the ongoing Covid-19 emergency), was to analyze the relationship between the expectations towards future life of 260 preadolescents aged 10-12 from two cities in the Emilia-Romagna region (the capital, Bologna, and Parma) and the influence that media contents can have on it, with a particular focus on social media. The main research hypothesis was to consider that the dreams of preadolescents reflect the culture of the contemporary society to which they belong. Specifically, the prevailing values and lifestyles characterizing their subculture were observed (they belong to the so-called Generation Z, a hyper-connected generation). Another interesting aspect of this research was the possibility of comparing the results with those of a similar study on preadolescents imaginary conducted in 1995, involving 590 boys and girls from Milan and Bologna (belonging to the Millennial generation) to observe the social and cultural macro-changes in Italian society over the last decades.