The Crisis in Youth Suicide

My comment is about social media. I'm 66 years old. A grandmother. I STILL find myself comparing myself to others when I look at Facebook. I have decided to limit my participation to a very occasional check-in with people I seldom see, and to change my photo randomly to let others know I'm still alive. No posts about my happy or unhappy lifem grandkids, hobbies, political urges. Comparison is an ugly enemy. I cannot imagine the angst this could cause a young person on social media, still developing that frontal lobe and deciding who to be, especially after teen years interrupted by a pandemic. It was bad enough when I was a pudgy, smart kid in the 70s. I wonder what would happen if there were a "No Social Media" day or week or even a month. Like "dry January." Self-monitored, not imposed. Like any habit left behind for a time, I don't miss it. Maybe it would provide a re-set for some. Save a life. Save a heart. Save a spirit. Al-A-Teen for social media overuse.

I had a brother who took his own life when he was 23-years-old. This was some thirty-seven years ago. I found his body: he hung himself. Afterwards, my hair fell out in clumps. My brother was a shining light. The devastation in the aftermath of it wreaked great sorrow and unimaginable, crushing guilt upon the "survivors." It was as if we had been lined up across a highway and a rig tore into us wounding and dismembering us, but not to put us out of our unbearable pain. We remained emotionally crippled in unimaginable ways -- relationships fractured and hard feelings cemented over the years. Some of us just lost the will to live with it. Today I read about the high rates of suicide in this country and think about those other circles of sorrow rippling out. My advice: Get help for depression. It may not be easy, but keep at it. In the end, life is still worth it.

I encourage readers to consider that appliances do not "cause" suicide. Smartphones make it easier to share depressing images and thoughts - which depressed children may obsess on. But what "caused" their depression? Preston G laments mental health care: absent from elementary schools, rarely available to lower income children. Let's do a better job investigating adverse childhood experiences. We do not adequately treat - or even acknowledge - harm done to children. Bmk5891 connects suicide with sexual abuse. Let's look at that as a cause.

One of the big challenges not mentioned here is finding an in-network mental health care provider to treat the youth. Here is a helpful article that describes the continuous lack of reimbursement parity in mental health coverage (with the Federal Law of 2008 not being honored by insurance companies) that results in insufficient number of providers in networks - https://couriernewsroom.com/2019/12/10/even-with-insurance-americans-cant-find-mental-health-providers/ - We need to bring this issue into awareness.

Most kids come from divorced homes, schools are burdened and have no time or resources for every student in pain. The demands in this society to earn to create a place for yourself and stand out is harder than ever. The adults in the room act like children, look at the White House. People are being shot everywhere they go in this country! Tell me what is the youth is this society supposed to think? The planet is dying and the teenage girl who is brave enough to stand up and grieve and protest out loud, Greta, gets mocked by Trump! What kind of message are we giving our children?

Social connectedness is the number one protective factor in preventing suicide among all age groups. Who are the trusted adults in a child's life? Who will they turn to when they have feelings of distress and want to end their pain? Become a mentor, be an ally of LGBTQ youth, volunteer on a suicide prevention hotline, familiarize yourself with facts about suicide, or invest in suicide prevention training in schools and in the community. saving. We can all play a role in building a safe community for those who are in distress.

For all the negative consequences of "Social" Media, from teen suicides to its corrosive effects on our Democracy, does it even have a demonstrable, quantifiable positive side? Yes, I'm waiting for the answers. They seem to elude me.

School: There are no "C" students anymore. When did it become either possible or a negative for a child be average? The pressure on kids to be "The Best" is overwhelming in both sports and academics. There are no more recreational leagues you simply must be on a travel team or you will be left behind. I know a second grade child who tells me he will be going to Harvard. Why do they care? Why are they even aware of college? Parents. They gossip about neighbors and the neighbors' kids in front of their own. They treat their own much like breeders at a dog show: something to parade, hungry to brag about an accomplishment with the ultimate prize an Ivy League bumper sticker. The message being send to kids is loud and clear: your intrinsic value is tied up in accomplishments, ribbons, stars and trophies. Do not disappoint.

Sorry, but this is grown ups not listening to teens and not taking stock of what we have done to them with more and more pressure for the perfect school, SATs, etc etc. We need to face our responsibilities as adults for making the messed up world kids have.

I suspect part of the problem is the dangerous obsession that our culture has with standardization. It’s not just the standardized tests in our schools, though those are a big part of it. Kids are expected to be involved in extracurricular activities, and If a teen happens not to be particularly good at and interested in those activities that his school caters to, he is cast out. And worse: the obsession with standardization starts before kids even start school. Pediatricians measure babies as young as six months old against standardized developmental milestones. . The kid who doesn’t test well, whose interests are somewhat unique, and who might have missed milestones when he was younger, is really beaten down in our society.

There isn’t a one size fits all answer to the increasing suicide epidemic, but I believe there is a strong correlation between social media and the lowering of an already fragile self esteem of our teens. Our children don’t have the maturity for social media, or the skills to cope with the brazen cruelty they are exposed to. The resources to help combat the rising issues are virtually non existent. As a parent of two teens, social media simply isn’t allowed, devices aren’t available during the school week. There is a freedom to being disconnected to pursue hobbies and sports. Being without technology allows them to be free of others judgement while pursuing their own identities.

I am disappointed that the author did not call out the fact that suicide rate is shockingly higher for transgendered teens. More than half of trans male (female identifying as male) teens have attempted suicide. While 30 % of trans female (male identifying as female) say they have attempted suicide. Daylight for these issues is sadly missing in the press.

I challenge the goal of helping children “at risk”, suggesting that a subset of the population needs support. When 20% of adolescents report engaging in self harm and 1 in 10 contemplates suicide, the rates indicate all children are at risk. Distress tolerance, mindfulness, stress management, exercise, relationship skills, denying self loathing and asking for help, are crucial skills that all children should be taught. Their lives will be happier, healthier, and for many who cannot be identified beforehand, much longer as a result.

I have to comment on the hopelessness that seems so pervasive right now. I have a son in high school who tried to take his life and, as a pediatrician, I have cared for dozens of children who have attempted to take their lives. While being a teenager has always been a turbulent time, it seems now that the time had grown more difficult. Parents (middle class) can seem so desperate to keep their offspring in a position of power and their teens have to shoulder these expectations. Teens of less well off families often feel like they have no good options at all as a young adult. Can we blame them? All our teens now live in a country where truth, kindness, and character have become suspect, and leading from above, our government has given license to racism and xenophobia (to mention a few). The health of the planet is clearly in jeopardy and toss in a little 2050 sensationalism and kids are distraught. It’s all so disturbing and we feel it profoundly as adults so of course our children are terribly affected by our own distress. Preventative programs in high school are getting better at identifying at-risk youth. We need to fund and fill these positions with urgency. None of us can bear seeing our children die needlessly before us.

Many of the traditional sources of intervention are disappearing. Social workers in inner city schools, for example. Those who come into contact with kids need to show they are approachable. Many adolescents will take the opportunity to talk with them if they do. I worked with at-risk youth for years. Twelve to fourteen year olds are especially in need of support at the same time as they are pulling away from parents.

I dealt with the loss of 2 younger brothers, both of them defiant of me in the periods of their end of life. I could not get either of them to slow it down & had given up on the older of the 2, knowing that he wanted to hurt others for what he had done to himself. The younger just got too fascinated with toys & then highs. Then he took too much & they told me he had crashed but others around him at the time said nothing. Yes, I am black, and these sadness's hit us decades ago AND we cried but there were no shoulders for us to cry on. We are now creating some young people under stress like nothing seen in the past. Yes, a quadrupling of the number in 6 years is a catastrophe. Will our youths survive it? I don't begin to know. I can only hope we do something. Teens & prime of life people are dying much too fast while the elderly is needing much more care as we live longer. Sadly, I think that I know part of the solution, it is all very clear in front of us with so much history to prove cause and effect, but it is such a societal hot potato, no one will dare to touch it. So, the young will continue to perish.

I suppose I’m an expert on adolescent suicide after working in psych units, children’s hospitals, residential, and elementary schools. Several of my private practice adolescent clients reported to me in the last 2 weeks of a friend that had committed suicide. Families and schools tend to either hide in shame or not talk about it. Beware of clusters! I do not need any research to tell me what we need to do! In ALL elementary schools have a year long class about the mind, thoughts, emotions, behaviors and how they relate. Ideally 4th grade. Help them understand the most important thing in school is the mind and how to express emotions in order to understand themselves and others. I treated many kids in elementary school who had desires to die or thought about it because I looked for it! 4th grade on average, I started seeing early signs (thinking patterns and behaviors) of eating disorders, suicide, anxiety and depression. So much easier to treat at that age and with engaged parents. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to work in an elementary school, my salary is double in private practice, but I loved working at elementary schools. My child and adolescent clients said many times to me, “Mr. Preston should have a class on the mind and emotions.” So true but instead I treat reactively instead of proactive. Just like our entire society. I feel sad and frustrated that I can only help one kid or family at a time(usually wealthy)instead of a whole classroom or school.

The teenage brain can make some terrible and impulsive choices. Suicide is one of them. Kids aren’t resilient today. Schools need social emotional and character development curriculums. Plus more gym and movement -this is so helpful for depression. Parents need to be more self aware and to release their expectations of who their child should be. Parents: get to know your child. Be a safe, non-judgmental listener. Make sure you are paying attention.

After losing a loved one to chemical suicide; I would suggest that you discreetly monitor Internet searches for suicide methodologies. There are many sites providing information on chemical combinations that suggest a painless way out of life. Many of these lethal cocktails are difficult to detect in a busy ER setting as opioids are often used to mask the active ingredient. Naloxone will not prevent the combination of a commonly available household chemicals from executing the person you care about. Suicidal ideation is a trajectory that is difficult to interrupt. If you have a loved one or friend at risk, learn the symptoms of this syndrome. Finally, a planned suicide may involve extensive planning and secrecy to prevent detection.

"To Reduce Suicides, Keep the Guns Away " NYT Editorial Board, December 14, 2015 More NYT quotes: "There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides." "Guns, which remain plentiful and accessible, were used in nearly half of the nation’s 47,173 suicides in 2017." "The United States has 270 million guns and had 90 mass shooters from 1966 to 2012. No other country has more than 46 million guns or 18 mass shooters." We're in good company: "Besides the US only Mexico and Guatemala begin with the assumption that people have an inherent right to own guns." "Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the US. Only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings [than we do] among countries with more than 10 million people." Fewer guns, fewer deaths. Proven worldwide.

Depression with resulting suicide is a frequent cause of death in victims of Neuroborreliosis (Borrelia infection/Lyme Disease). Children are exposed to Tick Borne Disease in their yards, playing athletics, and camping out. A change in a child's personality may be infectious and not related to stress. Antibiotics may be more beneficial than psychological counseling. Proper testing is critical.

My brother committed suicide at 18. It is awful. At least for us, there was guilt, anger at each other for not having done more to save him, and a feeling of complete helplessness. There is just simply nothing to do once they are gone. I was never angry with him - he was very unhappy, and young and naive, and I still have the feeling that if someone had found him before he died (he overdosed on easily available medication in the home), he probably would have gotten through his hard years and would have made it. I don’t feel like he was even mature enough to truly understand that he really was going to die that night. But it is too late now. If you have a depressed teen, please keep a careful eye their medications away from them and anything easy they can kill themselves with in a moment of frustration.

Too often school serves as a holding tank that takes kids out of the flow of meaningful life—including real purposeful work and engagement with family and a larger society—for far too long. Unless you’re at the top of the heap academically, athletically or socially—hence the toxic brew of competition and envy—school is not an environment in which it’s easy to feel important and useful. No wonder many kids flounder and drown; they are neither sheltered from the worst aspects of our culture by the adults who claim to care for them, nor are they taken seriously as contributing members of society, full of youthful vigor and fresh ideas. Plus, who in their right mind would want to grow up to become those our society deems the most successful, powerful, rich? There are a bunch of pretty hideous old white guys running things TERRIBLY, wrecking the air that kids will be breathing their whole lives, stealing the lands, hoarding the wealth, etc. and we want kids to stick around to see what will be left for them to fix? Let’s require their help—socially, intellectually, politically, ethically—to turn this current nightmare around. Civics classes starting in elementary school with accompanying community service. Think tanks on the future that include kids in the ranks. The vote at fifteen or sixteen. Let’s put those phones to good use, not as a way to escape ‘real’ life, but as a means of communication when one is actively engaged in the fullness of life. We’ll all benefit.

I work with boys at-risk who have HIV. People do not understand at-risk means a spectrum. Suicide is at the top of the spectrum. Boys and guns. The gun is an insurance policy if things get any worse than they already are. Often, they'll hide the gun in their stuff if they're put in a foster home. Many kids in foster care will tell you the system worked for them. The suicidal see it differently. If you can imagine (you can't) an uninitiated foster parent taking in a hard-to-reach teenage boy with a history of sex work who has HIV and a gun in his bag. It happens. My anecdotal experience is that the boys who have done sex work and who have HIV exist at the brink of suicide far, far more ubiquitously than anyone wants to see. They will inevitably have customers (called tricks) who are married family men. Toys in the backseat of cars is a red flag. These boys miss nothing. There is a self-defeating gravitas in these relationships (many men will come back) and the men who have families will confront much anger the sex worker internalizes. Sex work is one thing with adults making adult decisions. These are kids who can barely form relationships among themselves. The trick has something the adolescent views with rage and envy. A family. Often, including a boy their age. I have never seen a scenario where an adolescent who tells a naive family about their father's attraction to boys turn out well. A churning revenge and depression. Suicide is an answer they cannot come back from.

Our community is in crisis and even voted to spend tax dollars to address youth suicide prevention. Teachers and administrators got really tired of the heartbreak of dead children. Some as young as 12 possibly younger. Social media plays a role but I think we patronize young people when we think they are not aware of the impact of politics and news on them. Kids are aware that this world faces gigantic problems and the answers given by current GOP leadership is; buy a gun and defend yourself and scientists are liars. Families in this community are already resistant to mental health care and insurance does not cover what is available. There are months long waits to see a therapist. It is cruel. So they turn to theologically weak "We have all the Truth" churches that tell them a version of prosperity gospel that blames the hurting. That they dont have enough faith in god to magically solve their problems. Shame the hurting. Much in our attitudes have to change. Intelligent and sensitive young people are scared and a brief scan of the news give them good reasons to be. We need intelligent and sensitive people to solve the problems, but the message our culture touts is toughness and anger makes winners. We must re-learn that a nurturing welfare engendering culture is not giving into weakness.

The most important thing parents of a suicidal child can own is a metal toolbox which locks with a combination padlock. Keep ALL meds in it, scrip and OTC. It can be bought for less than $25 and can save your child's life. In 2014, we had SIX suicide attempts. Oldest who is seriously mentally ill attempted and was hospitalized four times, twice seriously. Youngest attempted once and was in PICU 4 days. Middlest attempted twice, was in PICU once, and we almost lost her the second time. She spent 6 months in RTC. Oldest descended into Bipolar I & BPD. All three of them were cutting. Each of them had been sexually assaulted by a visitor to our home (but had not told). Oldest and Youngest developed anorexia. In crisis, it was everything I could do just to keep them alive. What I didn't know, was that the NPD/ASPD ex was Alienating all three of them against me. HE was breaking them mentally and emotionally. He was heading towards dissolving our 25 year marriage, and the children were only going to love one of us--it was GOING to be HIM. That would save him a LOT of money in child support! The LAST THING I was thinking about was THE FLIPPING CELL PHONE. Their cell phones were their tie to their loving and supportive friends. Take away their phones would produce instant suicidal ideation, if not outright threats, if not *actual attempts.* "Check in" on your child?? You can't be there every second! Their childhood best friend Lizzie committed suicide. She was 17. I miss her.

What is the relationship between antidepressant medication and the increase in youth suicide? There is a black box on those medications warning of suicidal thoughts.

A good way to reduce stress is to stop watching the news. All the racism, sexism, terrorism, mass shooting, climate catastrophes, murders, crimes against children, collapse of democracy, homelessness, cancer, poverty etc leaves people anxious and depressed. It’s also strangely addictive. People want to learn more and more bad news and the corporations that provide the news get rich selling fear.

Oh yeah, it clearly has to do with cell phone and internet use and definitely has nothing to do with the fact that we're living in a horribly twisted and broken version of capitalism that no teenager sees any viable escape from. You want a world where less kids kill themselves? Try working toward a world where more than 5% of the population is able to find meaningful employment that actually pays enough to someday afford a mortgage.

It would be helpful to understand if this is different between the sexes.

“It found a rise in suicide attempts during school months... correlates directly with their access to cellphones...” I’m sorry, but did we miss something there?

This was all relatively new when my kids were in middle and high school. Although I didn't realize how different my approach was at the time, my house rules were clear; all devices had to be surrendered no later than 9:00PM, lights out at 10. This rule carried on throughout their entire high school education, even after they turned 18. My daughters didn't love it, but there's an old (pre-internet) saying that nothing good happens when you're out past midnight, and the same thing went (and still goes) for the online world. There was absolutely no reason for my kids to be talking, virtually or otherwise, to anyone, and especially not to those who considered online bullying fun. Now that they're adults, I am confident that I made the correct, if unpopular, rule. They have good sleep habits, they have awareness when it comes to their time online and how they spend it, and they both realize now how important it was and is to spend time winding down from their phones at night. In the meantime, I have watched as other kids come up in the family without these types of restrictions, and they appear zombie like and depressed. It's obvious that they're not getting restorative sleep at night, and their "friendships" are shallow and tenuous. One day's "bestie" is another day's enemy, and the lack of constancy in relationships creates a fragile sense of self. I worry for these kids.

Certainly social media can cause no end of trouble to many vulnerable adolescents -- we all know the stories about bullying, fear of being left out, and sleep disturbance. But as with most things in life, social media can also have a role in saving other vulnerable adolescents (and others). For people who are socially isolated, or a bit quirky or any of a number of things that makes certain times of life a misery, the internet can help maintain ties with their friends who live a distance away. The internet can help an isolated child find his or her or their "people". I know for me that surviving my husband's grueling battle with cancer with my soul and marriage intact would have been much harder without the kind folks I "met" through a certain cancer message board I frequented daily for two years. The interviewed doctor doesn't give any mental space to ways we can use social media for connection.

One factor that I believe contributes to this crisis is the low quality mental health care coverage by health insurance companies. Granted, mental health care coverage has improved due to Obama's efforts. But we have such a long way to go. Families and teens desperately need affordable, quality treatment options and long-term programs. When your child is suicidal or has chronic suicidal ideation (as mine does), it is literally a life or death situation. Yet so many psychiatrists and therapists will not take insurance because they literally cannot make a living on the paltry reimbursement rates paid by insurance companies.

You quote: “We invest heavily in crisis care, which is the most expensive and least effective means of preventing suicide.” The cost, effectiveness, and cost effectiveness of large-scale suicide prevention programs are not known (in a hard fact, replicable science sort of way), so this strikes me as groundless supposition. "We'll save lives" beats "we'll save money" in more ways than one.

I was suicidal in my early teenage years. One attempt and a decade of suicidal thoughts to follow. This was about 20 years ago when AOL and instant messaging was just starting to come onto the scene. But a toxic soup of vulnerabilities (a deeply sensitive and creative spirit, introversion, some willfulness, a sexual assault that effectively ended my childhood while still in middle school) and painful realities of my upbringing and environment (a gaping lack of closeness and resonance with my oftentimes critical and emotionally absent parents, a suburban environment that was a hothouse of competition and gossip, a deeply repressive and shame-based spiritual viewpoint forged by the Roman Catholic Church) had me wanting to press the eject button on this life before high school had started. Add in the hormones, social complexity, the sheer cruelty of classmates and friends, the changing body, the intense feeling of social scrutiny coupled with perceived awkwardness. It has got to be even harder now for young people. Now they are way more resonant and in touch with their devices then they are with other humans, animals, and the natural world - as are the adults in their lives. Our world makes no room for rest and leaves people constantly overwhelmed, stretched beyond their capacity. Instead of relying on one another to co-regulate and soothe each other, we turn to devices - not for emotional sustenance and mirroring but to numb. All healing is relational. We need each other.

I would disagree with the conclusion that the rise in suicide attempts during school months means there is no link between teen suicides and the opioid crisis. During school terms, students encounter a wide variety of people that many might otherwise have no contact with. This might well make opioids more easy to obtain during the school year. Also, it's worth noting that researchers believe that at least 15-20% of opioid overdose deaths are actually suicides, i.e., death was the intended outcome, rather than accidental overdoses as these are usually considered to be.

As a young (22 year old) person, I find it very telling that this article notes that levels of suicidal tendencies rise during the school year and then pivots directly to social media without examining that point further. While social media contributes to the stress young people face, we also need to have a reckoning with the way current academic culture drives kids into the ground. School made me want to die as a teenager — the pressure to be on top to compete for the ability to get into a good college and therefore have a good future was immense. Sleep problems? How many teenagers are getting 4 hours a night of homework to do on top of extracurricular activities? I slept midnight to five AM for most of my adolescence to keep my grades up and keep my resume padded and ended up having a full blown mental breakdown. And I was one of the lucky ones — I had resources at home. If you’re coming from a home where you also have to reckon with the chronic stress of poverty? If you’re dealing with trauma (as many teens are)? If you’re stressed about taking care of younger siblings? You’ll fall behind, and the school system will treat you like you’re worthless for not keeping up. We encourage young people to tie their worth to their achievements, put them in such high pressure situations that only the best supported can succeed, and then wonder why they all hate themselves and their lives.

Protected from a "similar fate"? Some of the great minds of history have decided to leave Earth because it didn't live up to their standards. Suicide should not be considered a mental lapse, a crime or a sin. It is a choice that one gives oneself when it had no choice in being born onto this disturbing rock spinning through space at 73,000 miles per hour.

The article describes how social media can contribute to the problem, but does not mention another reason why the internet in general has facilitated suicide. Go to Google and type "how to hang yourself." Bingo ... step by step instructions, no special equipment (like guns or drugs) required. You'll even learn how to do it so easily that it's like falling asleep. I personally know two young men - age 14 and 18 - who took their lives this way.

Thank you for this important article and excellent courageous comments. I'm a retired psychiatrist, who treated 25,000 folks and wrote 1,000,000 Rx, mostly for antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs. Looking back in retirement, I discovered that our chronically over-active stress response is the common denominator for anxiety, depression, and all of the physical illnesses that make up out top ten causes of death. This subject is rarely seriously covered in the MSM, including the NYT. We have become a nation of stress addicts, which the social media fuels, and the elevated stress hormone levels keep us awake at night. Our educational system is based on competition, not cooperation, which generates constant stress. I've written a free e-book available on the net, "Stress R Us", and PB/Kindle versions are also available at cost on Amazon. The one subject no investigative journalist in the MSM wants to face is the impact of our human overpopulation (what I call "population density stress") on our children, which one brave commenter touches on. We need to ask ourselves why one in three entering college freshmen and one in four American women are ALREADY on anti-depressants. What I discovered in my research is that he brain chemicals temporarily replaced by anti-depressants are the very same ones used up by our over-active stress response. Do you see a pattern here? I sure as heck do! The book is "Stress R Us". Good Luck!

If I had killed myself my parents would have gladly have accepted your condolences and would have been secretly thrilled to be down one of the three children they never wanted. Until we admit that some parents don’t want to be parents and may even actively hate the children they have been “blessed” with, and that sex is pleasurable and can result in unintended and unwanted children, nothing is going to get fixed: addictions, birth control, suicide, abortion, religious or political misogyny meant to control women as baby-making factories, or climate change. Not everyone can stand up to 20 years of being told: “children wreck your life”...an unfair critique given that not one of us asked to be born or for our birth to wreck anyone’s life. All of society hides this simple truth about being unwanted, discussing suicide is unfathomable under these circumstances.

It's smartphones, social media, and internet that all link to a kids suicide. I honestly think that making elementary children talk about their feelings and emotions early is a very mart idea. That way when the children grow up, they wouldn't be afraid to talk about anything as long as they are comfortable. With more than 80 percent of kids, teens and young adults being on their phone, you could expect new ways of bullying. Now with cyber bullying, you can't just tell your kid to get off the phone. It is not that easy. Usually, bullying on the internet can continue on by bullying at school, work, etc. School can be another problem. Students can easily be stressed out from school work. Who doesn't get stressed out of work. Plus, around high school is when teens start applying for jobs, joining sports, and clubs. Now, while it is their decision to join sports, clubs etc, parents should be more easy on their kids when they get home from school. We don't know what any kid can be going through at home. At the end of the day, we should all watch what we say, where we say it and control the amount of time kids can be on their phones, social media, and video games.

My daughter was the happiest, strongest, smartest, caring, athletic, creative young woman I was so proud of, until she wasn't any more. It wasn't sudden but it was quick, too quick to know what was happening, but we did everything we thought we could do. The one thing we could not do was make her so called father be a father. He disappeared 8 years before she took her life.

Social media = public health scourge. A net negative on society and the world. Can this be denied any longer?

I unfortunately have some experience with this terrible problem, and I wonder if there is also a connection to increased pressure on kids at school to perform. Academic pressure is high, expectations are high and there is a sense among kids that every test, every homework assignment, every play made on the field, determines the rest of their lives. This is true even if the pressure isn't coming from the parents. Researchers trying to figure out what is behind the rise of suicidality among kids should examine whether the concurrent heightened expectations at school and in sports are also playing a role and if so, what we should do about it. Social media may be playing a role, but it is probably a mistake to ignore the high stakes atmosphere of childhood in the US these days.