The outbreak of unrest in French secondary schools these last autumn weeks has taken the form of very concrete images. Outside, the late heatwave and storms; inside the classrooms, even though it was already the month of October, a stifling mugginess. One of the banners that could be seen in front of the Jean Perrin high school in Rezé said “35°, 35 par classe, mais le problème c’est nos téléphones”. The students have taken to the streets asking for very concrete, material, palpable things: fans, the repair of blinds, the urgent hiring of teachers to cover leaves of absence, and the reduction of class sizes. Among the hand-painted slogans that have spread across social media, there was one that synthesized with bitter irony the paradox of a generation: “You ask us to prepare for the future in classrooms that cannot withstand the present”.

La Velada del Año VI, organized by Ibai Llanos, is a major event of streamers and celebrities with a large following among young people. The act, held last July, consists of boxing matches between internet personalities, interspersed with performances by well-known singers, especially trap and reggaeton. 80,000 people, mostly young, filling the La Cartuja stadium in Seville, and millions following it live from all over the Spanish-speaking world. A grandiose staging filled with grandiloquent tales, sentimentality, and, obviously, plenty of slaps, all to end up reproducing already well-known values: stories of personal improvement represented by streamers flush with money who train for months for a fight from which they take home a good cut. All seasoned with tacky references to Romans, many Spanish flags, romantic relationships of the streamers typical of the Disney of forty years ago, objectification of the woman's body – bad boy trap accompanied by Christian crosses– and many boys with the same haircut, very short, obviously.

The debate has returned regarding the duty of parents to monitor the social networks their children navigate.

Barcelona was one of the major European cities that had not yet been affected by the wave of violent protests that have been taking place in Europe for days, especially in France and Italy. Until this Saturday afternoon. About 500 young people, many of them minors, gathered in Plaça de Catalunya, alerted through social media and following the trail of unrest seen in other cities to express their rejection of the system. Without any clear slogan or banners, their attire—practically all in black or dark clothing and with hoods—already very much resembled the protests seen in other cities. And the riots did not take long to arrive.

Salvador Illa's government continues to give momentum to one of the star measures of its term: loans for young people for the first purchase of an apartment or house to serve as their primary residence. Now they will also be able to be used to finance rehabilitation works and purchase homes that already have official protection (HPO) status, as reported by the regional minister and government spokesperson, Sílvia Paneque, in a press conference this Tuesday.

Now that thousands of French teenagers have taken to the streets to protest, the (quite comfortable) temptation has arisen to discuss the most spectacular images of the demonstrations and to hastily interpret who these young people are and what their protest means. We have seen it these days. The mobilizations are explained through the banlieues, immigration, the far-left or, directly, the racaille (which means scum, riffraff, but not only that, because it is a word with a specific political history in France, which returns periodically, when certain young people stop occupying the place that others have assigned to them).

Dear young people and not-so-young people who are camping in the squares or who sympathize with those camping there to demand a right that is being denied to you, the right to have a roof over your heads: I would like to tell you something that you may know, but perhaps not, because the world moves very fast, one news story covers up another, and many of you do not read newspapers. My daughter is 18 years old and, like many of you, she will vote for the first time. Like many of you, she will not inherit any apartment (I would have liked for her to inherit one) but she will have a little more luck than others: she will inherit a half-paid mortgage with a reasonable price. She was born in 2007, which I have often explained (I am rambling willingly and consciously) was the year of the Golden Pig: at the Chinese restaurants where I used to go with my pregnant belly, they told me it was a year “of great luck”.

I have started the school year seeing countless photos posted by my friends with teased hair and dressed in the synthetic neon-colored tracksuits typical of the eighties. It has been a viral trend on social media where people of all ages have asked artificial intelligence for an image that evokes this iconic decade. Our aesthetic has changed a lot, but I'll warn you that the school keeps the desks with greenish iron legs and a drawer underneath where chewing gum still gets stuck. Years pass, school furniture remains.

For a decade, the ideal young woman wore neutral tones, emptied her closets, and turned order, self-control, and productivity into an aesthetic. It was 2014 and Sophia Amoruso was unaware that a hashtag, #girlboss, would change everything. A hand extended to thehustle-culture, the culture of busyness, accompanied by a minimalist trend in dressing and decorating everything, drew an apparently self-sufficient femininity: a young woman who worked, was entrepreneurial, took care of her body, maintained an impeccable appearance and home and routines to the minute, always hand in hand with a specialty coffee (or a matcha latte, nowadays). Now, the pendulum seems to have swung back, after years of hustle-culture have caused an almost predictable burnout. Ribbons, pastel colors, and extravagant prints are arriving, a whole ode to kitsch, accompanied by a feeling of nostalgia and a need to recover play, to be little girls again. From the girlbossto the girl dinner (the least elaborate girl's dinner) or girl math (the mental gymnastics to justify an expense); from minimalism to maximalism; from the young woman who could do it all to the young woman who wants to play again. The whimsy-maxxing is one of the most recent expressions to define this phenomenon.

I read in ARA a news item that “calls out to me”. Tibidabo will be “the stage for the biggest event ever conceived entirely for the active senior generation”. Wait, this must be meant for me and those of my generation. Are we active seniors? You bet! We want to party! It’s promoted by a platform called Club65, which makes me think I’ll be one of the youngest at the gathering. This club says it will “fill the summit of Barcelona with talent, music, humor, and well-being”, and that makes me smile. Since we are seniors, there will be talent, yes; music, yes; humor, too, and well-being. This means there won't be many big beers, since we're of a certain age. The party will have a “marathon schedule”, they promise me, and I, upon reading it, am already sharpening my claws. I will close the after, I will see the sun rise. But then I keep reading and my joy turns to sorrow (that’s an expression we seniors say a lot, like the juniors, who say bro). The marathon schedule runs from “11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.”. In other words, at half past nine, yogurt and to bed.

The afternoon begins dully with a heat that only seems tolerable because the permanent state of exception of the climate has forced us to lower our standards. It is a public holiday Friday and Catalan politics has accumulated so many years of apathy that I admit I arrive loaded with preventive pessimism at Plaça Universitat, and I sink into prejudice when I find the ANC stalls full of white hair. Then I cling to the lifeline of a group of teenagers with estelades who pass by me. They are shy, they explain to me that they have come down by train from Os de Balaguer and say they don't know much about politics. To shake them up a bit, I ask them to compare this Diada with the previous ones they have experienced, and they all agree on one point: "There are more young people than ever." As I get closer to the heart of the matter, I realize they are absolutely right: I haven't missed a single protest since 2012 and I had never seen so many young people. Although the rational part of my brain knows that the absolute number cannot be compared to that of the epic years, the impression of seeing a proportion of young people higher than that of older people completely changes the emotional color of the Diada.

Four voices separated by little more than four years –two political scientists aged 24 and 22, a 23-year-old nurse, and a 26-year-old psychologist– were teenagers when they lived through the 'Procés'. Now, in perspective, they debate it based on five photographs that they reveal during a discussion on the ARA set: the coexistence of flags, the pro-independence demonstrations of September 11th, the role of Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras, the presidency of Salvador Illa, and the legacy of former president Jordi Pujol. The journey outlines the evolution of a movement that today, nine years after October 1st, is torn between nostalgia and the search for a new narrative.

In October 2017, thousands of young people who were then between 18 and 22 years old experienced their great vital and political baptism by defending the ballot boxes in the street. Today, the "1-O Generation", born between 1995 and 1999, is reaching their thirties, has left the shelter of student life and has begun to face the harshness of labor precariousness and the serious housing crisis. But, how has their perspective evolved in this decade?

There are words that explain a generation better than many sociology treatises. “Farming aura” is one of those expressions. If a teenager tells us that someone has farmed aura, they are not talking about any spiritual energy or a mysterious property, we don't need to think that it has to do with esotericism, no. It means, more or less, that that person has done something that has made them gain presence, charisma, style, or admiration. They have scored points, ergo they have gained aura.The word farmejar (from the verb to farm or farming, in English) comes from cultivating, growing, etc., but, for young people, its meaning comes from the world of video games and means repeating a certain action to accumulate experience, resources, or points and increase value or level. From video games, it has jumped into everyday life and even real battles are taking place in parks and squares. The logic is fascinating because we too can accumulate social capital through gestures, ways of dressing, attitudes, phrases, looks, or situations that make us seem more interesting to others. Aura is no longer that intangible quality that makes a person acquire a certain magnetism, that which simply emanates from a person, and it becomes a kind of invisible marker.Pierre Bourdieu helps us understand that perhaps there is nothing as new as it seems. The French sociologist had already explained that prestige is not an individual property, but a form of symbolic capital, since something acquires value because a community recognizes it as such. Clothes, musical tastes, the way of speaking, the places we frequent, or our cultural references can function as signs of distinction. What changes now is the speed and, above all, the awareness of the mechanism.Farming aura has become a characteristic expression of the digital slang of generation alpha, also shared with generation z. It is no longer just about having style, but it is necessary to know how to produce it, exhibit it, and manage it. A look at the right moment, a soccer celebration, a way of walking, a witty response, or even knowing how to remain impassive in a ridiculous situation can generate "plus a thousand aura". In aura battles, this logic becomes explicit, because young people compete before an audience that decides who transmits more presence.

In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt warned against a society divided into two camps: those who believe in omnipotence—capable of organizing themselves to bring order to the prevailing chaos (if necessary, by force)—and those who experience the deepest helplessness.

Imagine this scene: an eighty-year-old person, a consultation, and a son or daughter. The professional looks at the companion and asks: "And how are they?" The person is there. They hear. They can speak. But the question is not directed at them. You don't need to say anything offensive to belittle someone: sometimes it's enough to talk about the person instead of talking to them.For decades we have been studying elderspeak, the excessively protective or condescending speech towards older people: simplifying language, abusing diminutives, or speaking as if the other person were not fully capable of deciding for themselves. And all "for their own good." In a paper that Howard Giles and I have just published in Frontiers in Language Sciences, we analyze this paradox: elderspeak can devalue the recipient and yet be tolerated because it comes cloaked in affection, protection, or care.But growing old doesn't come alone: although men and women can lose visibility and be infantilized, research shows that they do not age socially in the same way and that these processes begin earlier in women. Ageism does not replace sexism: it is added to it. For a good part of their lives, many women have had to fight to be heard. And one day, without really knowing when it happened, they discover that others already treat them as old. Before, they could be too young or too emotional. There was always some too much. Now age is enough: it speaks for them. Condescension then finds a well-trodden path: "Come on, slowly, so we don't fall." "I'll explain this to your daughter." "Leave it, leave it, I'll do it." In men, this infantilization can become more visible when fragility or dependence make care necessary.The problem is not helping or protecting those who need it, but how we do it and whether we confuse the need for help with an inability to decide. Or to think. And words are not condescending on their own either. For me, my grandchildren calling me avieta or aviona seems charming. It is not a word, not even a diminutive, that turns affection into condescension: it is who speaks, to whom, in what context, from what position, and with what tone.Why does age end up obscuring the person in front of us? Have we associated youth and beauty with interest, ability, and competence? We only need to look at who appears on television or who we continue to grant authority to. And here gender strikes again: why do we better tolerate the visible aging of a man than that of a woman? For him, white hair can signify experience; for her, simply, age. Wrinkles give him character; they recommend an anti-aging serum to her. Perhaps old age makes us uncomfortable because it confronts us with a reality we prefer to turn our backs on: aging reminds us that life has an end.On June 15, World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, the Generalitat focused on micro-maltreatments. Parliament is also promoting a new law focused on ageism. However, laws protect rights. And part of ageism is played out daily in words: at the doctor's, at the bakery, or around the table at a Christmas dinner. Because respecting an older person is not just speaking to them sweetly. It is continuing to speak with them as adult to adult.

The consequences of the social media business model may be catching up with Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. The giant led by Mark Zuckerberg faces the first session of a trial this Tuesday that could place limits on what part of the US administration considers digital excesses. 29 US states, led by Colorado, California, New Jersey, and Kentucky, accuse the multinational of having introduced features and dynamics on its main platforms that generate addiction among children and adolescents.

What would happen if we asked a series of people what words they would use to define today's youth? The number of times words like individualistic or unmotivated would appear would stand out to the detriment of the use of other positive concepts. The resulting image would be the one that often prevails in public debate, because it is by repeating a narrative that it ends up being established as true.Now allow me to combine two ideas: the current perception of young people and the Pygmalion effect — the psychological phenomenon in which one person's expectations of another directly influence their behavior and outcomes — widely studied in the educational field. It is easy for young people to also end up believing it, not just certain adults who defend these ideas and who look at them with eyes full of prejudice. How can we afford to validate such a reductionist view of youth? We have too many open fronts to not trust young people and the skills and abilities they have to contribute to improving the society in which we live. There is a real need for young people to be involved to respond to current emergency situations. One of the most obvious, especially this summer, is the climate emergency and the urgency of a change in current lifestyles. And yet, young people are often turned away. Are we not aware of the large volume of young people committed to social movements and the values and ideals that lead them to participate in these spaces?In the case of the youth groups of the Pere Tarrés Foundation Movement, and also of the scout groups, thousands of young people dedicate their time entirely voluntarily to educating and accompanying children. And, of these thousands, there are a good number who invest their work holidays in the summer colonies, camps, or routes of the youth group. They do so because they firmly believe in the impact that the youth group leaves and they assume a commitment. We often repeat that leisure education has been and is a school for citizenship. We are referring to all the learning that children, adolescents and young people take away from the experience of living this opportunity. The monitors become role models for those they accompany. They transmit to children the importance of dedicating themselves to the transformation of their environment from everyday life, of becoming critical people open to diversity, and of developing leadership, conflict resolution or organizational skills, thus training new generations of young people with a transformative vision of society. Faced with this reality of committed young people and current global crises, we must find ways to demonstrate that, as a society, we trust our young people and recognize their contribution. Let's think about it now that we have just celebrated, on the 12th, International Youth Day. It will be by offering spaces to lead, make mistakes, learn, and care for others that we will be able to show a confidence in young people that will allow us to awaken and cultivate the commitment we speak of, and, in this way, we will be able to become a more cohesive, fairer, and more participatory society.

When 24-year-old Clàudia Ferro told her parents that she wouldn't be staying in any hotel or had booked any apartment that summer, the first question was inevitable: “And where will you stay?”. The answer summarizes a new way of understanding travel: “I will work a few hours a day and, in return, I will have a place to sleep”.

His own experience has led Hatim Azahri Akhnous, 28, to dedicate his life to transforming the reality of the most vulnerable people. A higher technician in social integration and a student of social work at the UB, in 2019 he founded the association Joves Units del Poble-Sec with the aim of generating real opportunities for young people in the neighborhood at risk of exclusion. Since last year he has been a trustee of Equitat.org (formerly Fundació Bofill) and this year he has been awarded the Princess of Girona Prize in the Social category and has participated in the VI meeting of Lafede Changing education to change the world.