--- title: "Nobody wants to be a firefighter any more" canonical: "https://blissagency.it/en/editoriali-en/nobody-wants-to-be-firefighter/" url: "https://blissagency.it/en/editoriali-en/nobody-wants-to-be-firefighter/md/" site: "Bliss" published: "2026-05-08T11:10:00+02:00" modified: "2026-10-12T13:15:43+02:00" language: "en-US" description: "Children of the social media age, the new generations dream of jobs other than firefighting. But what is the real reason? And what are the consequences?" section: "Editoriali" --- # Nobody wants to be a firefighter any more Let me propose an experiment. Ask a ten-year-old what they want to be when they grow up. Thirty years ago the most common answer would probably have been a firefighter, an astronaut, a pilot. Professions that have always required (and always will require) years of training, practice and sacrifice. Today the most common answer has changed. According to a [Harris Poll survey conducted with LEGO in 2019](https://www.fanpage.it/innovazione/tecnologia/dentro-i-campi-estivi-dove-i-bambini-imparano-a-diventare-youtuber-professionisti/), almost 30% of American children want to become YouTubers when they grow up, compared with 3% who want to become astronauts. And the picture does not improve with age: among 13- to 38-year-olds, 54% want to become influencers. The fault lies not with laziness or values. It is all a question of role models: of aspirations, and of how radically the world has changed within a single generation. A firefighter does not produce content. They do not scale or have followers. They do not exist in the ecosystem in which younger generations have learnt to measure success. The problem is not the dream. The problem is what is lost when the path to achieving it disappears. ## The internet has changed success [In 1954 Leon Festinger formulated social comparison theory](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001872675400700202). In his view, human beings evaluated themselves by comparing themselves with others, finding in that comparison their main source of aspiration and self-esteem. For two thousand years (and more), the reference group of every young human being on the face of the Earth was geographically limited. They could see their family, their neighbourhood, their school, their town. Comparison happened with real people, real paths, successes that were accessible and understandable. The butcher’s son became a butcher because the butcher was the most visible model of success within his range of comparison, and he admired the doctor because he saw his town’s doctor doing good things. The internet has erased that radius. Today a fifteen-year-old is confronted every day with creators from all over the world who display unattainable lifestyles and results with no visible path behind them. Not because those paths do not exist, but because the platforms make them invisible. We are now used to showing the result, not the construction. [A study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology in 2018](https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/social-media-use-increases-depression-and-loneliness) documented a direct correlation between Instagram use and rising depression and anxiety in young adults. The cause identified was not the content itself, but systematic comparison with highly curated, optimised versions of other people’s lives. After all, a brain (especially a young one) cannot tell the difference between a real model and one built to look real. It simply reacts to the comparison. The result is a generation that has internalised a model of success based on immediate visibility, on scalability, on the possibility of bypassing the traditional path, and that has been systematically exposed to a set of incentives that rewards and amplifies that model. ## **The illusion of rapid competence** The neuroscience of skill development has precisely documented a process that takes place in the brain during repeated practice sustained over time. The technical term is *myelination*. Myelin is a sheath of fatty tissue that wraps around the most frequently used neural circuits, increasing the speed and precision with which electrical signals are transmitted. Each time a skill is practised in depth, the brain strengthens the corresponding circuit by depositing myelin. The result, over time, is what we call *expertise*: the ability to perform an action with precision and speed. This process takes time. It cannot be accelerated by motivation or talent. It is built only through years of deliberate practice (what [Anders Ericsson called *deliberate practice*](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15383395/): practice outside the comfort zone, with constant feedback, focused on improving weak points). Apprenticeship, in its most authentic form, is exactly this: systematic exposure to difficult situations, with the support of those who already know how, in a setting that allows mistakes without irreparable consequences. That is how real competence is formed. When this process is skipped, the competence that develops has the surface but not the structure. It works in favourable conditions but does not hold up under pressure in new situations. ## The illusion of constant feedback Not to mention the way the dopaminergic system regulates the brain’s reward. Digital platforms are designed to exploit it through intermittent reinforcement, and this has had concrete consequences for young people’s neural processes. For a young person exposed to such stimuli from adolescence, adaptation is inevitable: they expect rapid gratification, and the absence of immediate feedback becomes a negative signal rather than (as it has always been for millennia) a natural one. Apprenticeship is now hard to bear at a neural level. It is not a matter of willpower but of the prefrontal cortex, which continues developing only until the age of 25. In an environment that does not systematically train it to tolerate waiting, that capacity remains underdeveloped. ## Effort builds capability In 1989 the researcher Richard Dienstbier published a study that would shape decades of research on resilience: *[toughness theory](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2538855/)*. Its central thesis was that repeated exposure to moderate challenges, followed by recovery, produces physiological changes that increase the capacity to respond to stress over time. A brain and body exposed to manageable difficulty become more capable of handling greater difficulty. The opposite mechanism is equally well documented: systematic protection from stress, avoidance of difficult situations and a constant search for environments that demand no effort produce a nervous system less able to withstand pressure. This shows that ease does not build resilience. ## The problem affects everyone: brands included The same logic of instant gratification that has rewritten the aspirations of younger generations has also rewritten the way companies communicate, invest and build their positioning. Long-term brand building has given ground to immediate performance. The result is the same as what happens in the brain of a young person who skips the apprenticeship: structures that appear to function but do not hold up under pressure. Brands that look strong while the market is favourable and crumble at the first crisis. The firefighter that no one wants to become any more is not just a problem of lost vocations. It is the symptom of a system that has stopped valuing slow construction. And systems that stop valuing slow construction sooner or later find themselves without the foundations to support what they have built. What will become of certain trades and certain ambitions, then, I cannot say. One thing is certain, however: the firefighter’s job will return when the journey is once again valued as much as the result, and when new criteria are introduced to reward imitation, aspiration and slowness. Changing what a generation wants to be when it grows up means changing what that generation sees as desirable every day. And this, more than any school reform or tax incentive, is the most urgent work we should be doing. --- ## New Connections (FAQ) ### Why are new generations less willing to make sacrifices than previous ones? *It is not a matter of disposition, but of frame of reference. The brain aspires to what it sees as attainable and desirable. Previous generations saw models of success built on long paths because those were the visible models. New generations see seemingly instant models of success every day. They did not choose to change their aspirations: the system of incentives around them changed them. The distinction matters because it radically changes what is needed to reverse the trend.* ### Why does skipping the apprenticeship cause problems only years later, and not straight away? *Because myelination, the process through which the brain builds deep competence, produces cumulative, non-linear effects. In the early years the difference between those who have practised deliberately and those who have not is often invisible, or even reversed: someone who learnt quickly can appear more capable than someone who built slowly. The difference emerges under pressure, in new situations, in contexts where answers already learnt are not enough. That is exactly where the neurological structure built through deliberate practice makes the difference.* ### How do we recreate a culture of apprenticeship? *By making the journey visible, not just the result. The problem is not that young people are unwilling to work hard. It is that hard work has no visible, aspirational models within the frame of reference they are immersed in. Organisations and leaders who show publicly how expertise is built over time, and who value the journey as highly as they value the result, create the models the new generations need to recalibrate their expectations to realistic timeframes. [Bliss](https://blissagency.it/en/bliss-agency-company-profile/) believes in this.* **BLISS®** **© 2026. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED**