For young people, it is positive and necessary to have role models to follow, it helps them to build their identity, imagine different possibilities, find motivations, and know where to go. “The most important thing would be to have several role models, and for them to be human and imperfect, so they become a guide to look up to and not a pressure to imitate”, proposes Sylvie Pérez Lima, a registered psychologist and professor at the UOC. But what are young people's idols like in the digital age? From the 1960s to the 2000s, teenagers' bedrooms were transformed with posters of their youth idols hanging on the walls. “They were young people a bit older than them whom they looked up to, and they idealized their image and identity,” explains Carles Feixa, a professor of social anthropology at the UPF and coordinator of the Youth in Spain Report (INJUVE 2024). In the 1960s, teenagers appropriated their bedrooms for the first time and displayed their idols, especially musical ones, rock’n’roll and rock evolutions. In the 70s, they were revolutionary political idols –Mao Tse Tung, Che, or Fidel Castro–, who, with the crisis at the end of the 70s, ceased to have continuity. Then, consumer idols returned with more commercial music, not so much protest-oriented, and sports idols, especially in football and tennis, who were models of success. It is from the 2000s onwards that digitalization began and more artificial idols emerged, youtubers and influencers, who would go on to occupy an even more intimate space, social media. Lucía (15 years old) does have posters hanging in her room, a couple from one of the Spiderman movies and several of Sadie Sink (@sadiesink_), an actress from Stranger Things: “I follow her on social media and watch all the interviews she does, she's my crush”. What she watches most on TikTok and Instagram are reels of series, music, and especially humor, accounts that make her laugh –“many silly things, falls, and slips”–, Manu Rivas (@manurivasr) or Pablo Vera's (@pablovr11) dances, news channels, and people who explain things like Javi Hoyos's (@javihoyosmartinez) gossip.

"There are no more urban tribes, and there won't be any, at least not with the presence and strength they had in the second half of the 20th century," states José Mansilla, an urban anthropologist in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). "In Spain, they emerged with great force in the 1980s as a result of a period of realignment in Spanish society. Now, only a few nostalgics will remain," he asserts.

According to the latest PISA report on financial literacy According to a 2022 OECD report, fifteen-year-old students in Spain are below the European average in financial literacy, and 17% do not even reach the basic level of financial competence. Financial literacy levels among adults are also low. Laura Mascaró, author of the book Where does he keep the money?She recommends that adults be aware of their relationship with money and whether they have bad habits: "Children learn from what they see at home; they are influenced by their parents' perception and management of money," she says.

In 2022, Daniel A. Abrams, professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, published in The Journal of Neuroscience Research on what happens in the brains of boys and girls at age thirteen shows that the neural centers involved in feelings of reward stop activating when they hear their mother's voice. Conversely, when they hear unfamiliar voices, the neural networks associated with pleasant sensations are activated. Therefore, when parents believe their children aren't listening to them, it's not just a guess; science has shown that they most likely aren't.

The Baccalaureate is one of the options for accessing university, two years in which students often feel pressured to achieve the necessary grade to study their desired degree. The access grade is determined by the average of the Baccalaureate grade, which represents 60%, and the university entrance exam grade, the remaining 40%.

As a result of Sectoral territorial plan for housing From the Catalan Government and with the aim of reflecting on the relationship between the economy and the housing crisis in our country, ARA, in collaboration with the Government of Catalonia, has organized a series of debates on housing. On December 19th, journalist Laura López moderated the last panel, entitled Housing and EconomyWith Agustí Sala, a journalist specializing in economics and deputy director of ARA, and Fernando Trias de Bes, an economist who has contributed to the newspaper for over 15 years.

The difficulty in accessing and maintaining decent and affordable housing is one of the factors contributing to inequality in Catalonia. Therefore, with the aim of facilitating access to housing, the Catalan government has created the 50,000 Homes PlanTo create 50,000 new public and affordable housing units by 2030 using public land and in collaboration with local councils, reserving 25% for young people with direct aid and emancipation funds.

At the end of 2024, the Catalan Sectoral Territorial Housing Plan (PTSH) was approved, the instrument of the Government of Catalonia for long-term planning and programming of housing policies. To learn more about the proposal, ARA, in collaboration with the Government of Catalonia, has organized a series of roundtables focused on housing. With the aim of assessing the proposed measures and future challenges, on December 17th, under the title "Housing Aid Currently Offered by the Government of Catalonia," journalist Laura López joined Luisa Fernanda Pinto, a lawyer specializing in urban planning law and housing expert for the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan (PEMB), and Karen Ortega, a researcher in the Housing and Demography group at the Center for Demographic Studies affiliated with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).

With coworkers

We associate Christmas with consumption. "We take advantage of most holidays to consume. We have the excuse of gifts, gastronomy, or books," says Albert Vinyals, professor of consumer psychology at the UAB and ESIC and author ofThe Deranged Consumer: A Diagnostic Manual of Consumer Pathologies(2020).

Christmas is the quintessential holiday, a time for family gatherings and reunions, celebrations with friends, where both believers and non-believers prepare for the festivities. But why is it Christmas? Celebrating the birth of Jesus on that date perfectly coincided with the winter solstice. It has many similarities to the rebirth of life; light begins to predominate and the days grow longer. "The processes of assimilating a culture are usually long, but they occur without too much fanfare; it's a modernization, as is happening now when we adapt to the needs of the moment," explains Amadeu Carbó, folklorist and writer, author ofWe celebrate Christmas: When, how and why of the biggest holiday(Morera Editions, 2016).

One of the most characteristic features of Christmas gatherings is the endless after-dinner conversation, a lunch that flows into afternoon tea, and then, while we're at it, we grab a few things and have dinner. To round off these after-dinner moments, beyond the conversations, a good board game always helps. There are games for all tastes and ages; you just need to consider who will be playing, what they like, and how much time they want to dedicate to it: "It's best if they are relatively short games, especially in families that aren't used to board games; 15 or 20-minute games work well," suggests Imma Marín, president of theGaming Institute.

In 2024, the Catalan government approved the Catalan biogas strategy 2024-2030 and its action plan, which is part of Catalonia's transition to a new, cleaner, more sustainable, democratic and fair energy model, aiming to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. The goal is to define and consolidate the sector by 2030.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools is becoming increasingly common in both professional and personal settings. According to the 2024 study byEmpantallados.com And according to GDA3, 82% of teenagers use AI for schoolwork, and 91% of families have not established rules for its use. This new reality poses new challenges for the educational community because currently there is no technological tool that can 100% guarantee that a job done with AITherefore, teachers must resort to other strategies to assess work.

In the context of the energy transition and environmental crisis we have been experiencing for years, the United Nations COP28 Climate Summit held in 2023 agreed to promote the reduction of fossil fuels to combat climate change and transition to renewable energies. Catalonia is committed to biogas and biomethane to reduce emissions, move towards energy independence, and promote a more sustainable circular economy.

"Families should be aware that the relationship between siblings, beyond encouraging it to be the best possible, will depend on the personality of each sibling," says Estrella Ferreira, a professor at the Faculty of Psychology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). Each sibling has their own personality and interests, but doing things together that everyone enjoys can be encouraged, so as not to weaken the relationship. Maria Helena Tolosa, teacher, psychopedagogue, trainer, and author ofOur daily conflicts, agrees: "It's a bond that deserves respect, but they don't have to be friends. The relationship between siblings has a degree in itself, which is different from that of friends, although if both come together it's wonderful."

In Catalonia, by 2025, 20% of the population will be over 65 years old. According to the latest projections from the Statistical Institute of Catalonia, the population aged 65 and over in Catalan municipalities will increase by 94% between 2024 and 2034. Therefore, not only will there be more population, but it will also be older, with a trend towards aging in 9 out of 10 municipalities. Aging is one of the collective challenges that today's societies must face.

"They spend all day in their rooms and aren't interested in doing things with us," laments Pedro, the father of two teenage boys, ages 13 and 15. Both he and his partner, Marta, are getting used to this new stage. "Adolescence has such a bad reputation that you get a little scared, but it's not that bad," admits the mother, although she acknowledges that they are still adjusting.

The first place adolescents begin to express their identity is in their room. Sometimes they do this by wanting to rearrange furniture. These changes are related to the process of identity construction. The gesture of closing the door signals that the young person begins to seek privacy, to explore and find their innermost being. "It's the beginning of the process of more active identity construction. It usually happens between the ages of 12 and 15, although some young people never need to do it," says Sara Desirée Ruiz, a social educator and psychotherapist specializing in adolescence. What she suggests to families is to observe, and when adolescents begin to close the door, the family should knock before entering.

It must have been the summer of '59 when Pilarín Bayés started partying with Joan. She says it was a fluke; they kept running into each other for any reason and acted like it was pure coincidence. They strolled without holding hands; no one was on the same page. He said he'd never party; he was an independent spirit, and it wasn't until late summer that the relationship was revealed and everything became known.