Sant Joan is synonymous with the start of summer, as the saying goes. It's a time for firecrackers and parties that go on until dawn, for coca and cava and, why not say it, also for great castells. Because yes, casteller-wise, the arrival of June 24th marks a turning point in the season. The calendar enters a new dimension and the groups begin to show their best cards. Valls and Tarragona will once again concentrate a large part of the attention of the casteller world in two events that, year after year, serve to gauge the state of form of the groups and begin to outline the great objectives of the summer.This year, however, the tempos have advanced. Before reaching Sant Joan, we have already seen several groups that have managed to build basic nine-story castles and, even, some premature incursions into the extra range. All this suggests that the main formations arrive at the end of June with more work done than in other seasons. Despite this, the festivals of Valls and Tarragona continue to maintain their specific weight within the calendar.The first great duel from Valls in Plaça del BlatThe Colla Vella and the Colla Joves will first meet on the night of June 23rd in Plaça del Blat with the traditional Completes performance, a day that preserves all the essence of old-style human towers and usually offers the first clues about the intentions of the two groups. Less than 24 hours later, the same venue will host the great Sant Joan performance, an event that year after year marks the start of the strong part of the human tower season.In Plaça del Blat, the quintessential stage for human tower rivalry, Colla Vella and Colla Joves arrive with important aspirations. The rosats have had a convincing start to the season and have progressively expanded their range of constructions. The work done with the basic nine-level towers allows them to start looking towards other objectives and face Sant Joan with various options open. The 5d9f continues to be one of the structures that generates the most excitement, but rehearsals also hint at the possibility of seeing other top-difficulty constructions such as the 7 of 9 with folre, the 4 of 9 with folre and agulla, or the pillar of 8 with folre and manilles.The situation of Joves is different, but equally promising. The reds have advanced with more caution during the first weeks of the course, consolidating pieces before making the leap to the big challenges. Now, however, the time has come to accelerate. The group from Gassó street is working with an eye on superior constructions and with the desire to present themselves at Sant Joan with everything. The 2 of 9 with folre and manilles and the pillar of 8 with folre and manilles appear as some of the most notable objectives.Tarragona's groups want to bring premieres for Sant JoanIn Tarragona, the festival also arrives loaded with attractions. The Colla Jove is the one that, at present, presents the most solid credentials. The lilacs have completed a very consistent start to the season and recently achieved the earliest magical triplet in their history. With the basic castles of nine fully consolidated and the pillar of 7 with folre already debuted, all eyes are now on the 2 of 9 with folre and manilles. If the rehearsals in the coming hours support it, those from Cós del Bou could become the first group of the year to debut this construction.

A recent report published in the United States (RAND foundation) states that the use of artificial intelligence chatbots for mental health advice among adolescents and young adults has increased by more than 40% in the last year, and that almost 1 in 5 report having used AI tools for support. 19.2% of young people between 12 and 21 years old said they had used AI chatbots (Gemini, ChatGPT, Meta AI, or Character.AI) for help or advice when they felt angry, nervous, sad, or stressed.

The shift of youth towards conservative positions, especially among boys, often leaves another reality out of focus: the primary political option among young people, both in elections and in other instances of political participation, is abstention. In the 2024 European elections, only 2 out of 10 people under 24 exercised their right to vote. According to the Centre for Opinion Studies, the youngest age groups are the most abstentionist (less than half claim to be sure they would vote) and it is also the age group that is least informed about politics.

Young people and migrants are particularly suffering from the housing crisis in Catalonia, as in many other European regions. These two groups are an important part of the low-income population, who are the ones who suffer the most from this problem.

It is undeniable that the Catalan and Spanish economies are growing. On a macroeconomic level, the trend in gross domestic product (GDP) is positive, especially when compared to neighboring eurozone countries. Not even the war in Iran, which has had less impact than expected, has pushed these economies down from their leading positions in terms of growth.

Lately, I've read here and there that young people today are less interested in working. In May, a special issue of El País argued that generations like mine prioritize the possibility of balancing work with free time and avoid taking on positions of responsibility that consume life time. It's true: I have people very close to me who have given up on promotions because they preferred to have weekends to rest than to earn two hundred euros more. And I think the explanation is quite reasonable: nowadays, more education does not mean more economic remuneration, which indicates that the promised meritocratic system is failing somewhere.And it would be great if meritocracy failed because there was more democratic access to resources, but that's not the case: what fails is a meritocracy, the one that holds that more dedication and more training imply more reward. However, the jobs with the highest salaries continue to be held by the same people (origin, class, even gender), as if the prize had been distributed in advance. That's why I say that a meritocracy fails: the one based on the law of maximum effort, the law of renunciation, the law of suffering. And so young people, little by little, are giving up on it: "I'd rather not," they say, as if they were Bartleby in the New York office. Up to here, I agree with the discourses that project this kind of disillusionment — even cynicism — among the youngest. However, something doesn't fit. If this is really the case, why are most of my colleagues on the verge of burnout? Why do I have friends who have applied for competitive exams as soon as they had the opportunity, as if their lives depended on it? Why does work continue to be a kind of mecca for self-realization and personal satisfaction? That there is disillusionment does not mean that there is a radical transformation around the idea of work.

Designed for young people and brought to life by young people themselves, "Tal Qual: what interests young people" completely filled the Josep Rom auditorium at Blanquerna-URL, in Barcelona. This first debate forum, connected with the interests and concerns of students, brought together content creators, experts, and journalists to discuss gambling addiction, the consumption of journalistic content, and dating apps.

The Government will extend the age of access to emancipation loans to 40 years from Monday. It is an "instrument to facilitate the payment of the down payment for a home for young people so that they can subsequently apply for a mortgage: "They encounter a barrier, a wall, which is the down payment," explained the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, at an event at the Institut Català de Finances (ICF) this Friday.

I am at a party dedicated to wine, with all sorts of farmers who have dressed up for the celebration and where the care of the landscape by those who dedicate themselves to it is celebrated.

Do you remember the movie Hidden Figures? It tells the true story of the first African-American female mathematicians who were decisive at NASA during the space race. The translated title of the book it was based on, Talentos ocultos, seems more accurate to me: it describes the brilliance and perseverance of those women in a socially brutal era for them. But what truly moved me was their passion for work. The light in their eyes. The hours they spent without realizing it. The absolute involvement in what they were doing.

The demand from generation Z has raised the bar and has forced banking to focus on immediate experience. José Ballester, territorial director of BBVA in Catalonia, details how the entity is facing this new paradigm by offering not only an agile app and very competitive rates and products, but also the ability to count on a manager for life's big decisions.How are the financial habits of young people in Catalonia changing in an increasingly digital and competitive context?

In this Sunday's newspaper, Àlex Gutiérrez interviewed the comedian Maria Rovira, known as Oye Sherman, with whom I had the good fortune to meet doing radio a few years ago. I remember how impressed I was that such a young girl showed such great interest in language and culture, and sparked a quick and funny mind without any desire to grab the spotlight.

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.

Arnau Pericàs (2005), Martí Salvia (2005) and Luana Rocha (2005), are three third-year audiovisual communication students at Pompeu Fabra University who are currently succeeding with their video podcast Guarres!, a program in which they weekly talk about sex frankly, without filters and without fear, in a bold and provocative way..Last year they took the radio class, in which they had to present an audio pilot, and they decided to talk about sex in a theatrical way, with characters from their own fantasy universe. That episode was very different from what we can find on their platforms now, and it received a grade of six out of ten. All three were left with a great desire to apply the professor's corrections, which is why last summer they decided to resume the project voluntarily and extracurricularly. Despite changing the program's structure, they kept the characters of Gina Bashina, Luz Phallus, and Consol Adó.

The Catalan Finance Institute (ICF), the public bank of the Generalitat, has granted to date 846 loans to young people aged 18 to 35 to obtain the down payment for an apartment. The average granted is 36,332 euros and an average housing price of 189,908 euros with an average age of beneficiaries of 29.4 years, according to data presented by the Secretary General of Economy and President of the ICF's governing board, Juli Fernández, and the entity's CEO, Vanessa Servera.

“I’m noticing it’s getting harder and harder for me to go out partying,” says Albert Thió Hortoneda, 26, from Barcelona. “You go into a club at two in the morning, you’ve paid 20 euros, and to get your money’s worth, you have to stay until six. This throws my sleep patterns off a bit,” he explains. He says that packaged, consumer-focused partying that lasts for hours on end doesn’t appeal to him. “I hadn’t really thought about it being a generational thing, but I do see that a lot of people around me are experiencing the same thing,” he points out. In fact, articles and videos with hashtags like "We've normalized not going out"where very young people speak openly about not going out partying in their 20s. What was once a stigma – having to tell friends not to include you in their plans – seems to have found its niche on TikTok with hashtags on well-being and self-care.

The president of the Generalitat (Catalan government) has posted a video on Instagram reacting to a clip published by Flaixbac. The video shows a group of young people attending the Saló de l'Ensenyament (Education Fair) being asked, "Who is the current president of the Generalitat of Catalonia?" Among the incorrect answers were names like Salvador Espriu, Joan Pera, Salvador Dalí, Jaume Collboni, and Pedro Sánchez, which they uttered amidst awkward laughter.

"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.

We're ending the week with gasoline prices climbing and the war escalating. To give you an idea, the US Treasury Department has announced it will temporarily authorize countries to buy Russian oil from tankers in transit.Iran's new supreme leader, son of the previous one, says the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed While Netanyahu remains silent and bombs, Trump speaks to continue occupying the center of the stage alone and says things like the increase in fuel prices is bringing many benefits to American companies.

For work reasons, I live and share meals with a group of young people in their twenties and thirties. I've cooked with young people before, of course, but the meals were always prepared or paid for by me. This is different—we eat with a few scrapes from work—because I can observe their culinary habits and customs.