One-third of US teen girls seriously considered attempting suicide in 2021: CDC
abcnews.go.com
abcnews.go.com
But I did find that the suicide rate in 2021 was 14 per 100,000. That's general population. I don't know the rate for teen girls, but I'd accept that it may be several times higher. Say, 50 per 100,000, or about 0.05%. (Although I've also heard that male suicide rate is higher than female.)
That would mean that of those girls that 'seriously considered attempting suicide' in 2021, only around 0.15% of them actually did it.
I'd obviously be concerned if a girl expressed that she thought about killing herself; whatever is causing her torment needs to be corrected. But still, when numbers like 'one third' are tossed around, it needs to be recognized that 99.9% of them don't do it.
Fragmentary data without including all the groups, presenting the totals, or even presenting the most important data (actually committed suicides). Ignoring the fact that among the subgroups it's highly likely that reported "suicidal thoughts" will be biased by cultural factors.
One thing that I’ve noticed in Gen Z is this repeated “I don’t feel like myself” sentiment. If any young person out there is struggling with that thought: you’re not alone. I don’t feel like myself. I wish I was someone else all the time. This is the human condition, and we should celebrate it. Feeling out of place and time doesn’t make you a weirdo - it makes you intelligent. Hang in there!
It's kind of weird how we try to fight this basic human need.
Wish I were down
On some blue bayou
With a bamboo cane
Stuck in the sand
But the road I’m on
Don’t seem to go there
So I just dream
Keep on being the way that I am
The way I am
Don’t fit my shackles
The way I am
Reality
I can almost see
That bobber dancing
So I just dream
Keep on being the way that I amI don't know what the baseline has been over the generations, but being in double-digit percentages is astounding.
- fragmentary stats about considering suicide and attempted suicide within a choosen few specific groups
What was not included:
- how many attempts actually succeeded
- what were the stats in the whole population and within other groups
Meanwhile:
> A total of 5,568 youth living in the United States died by suicide during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The majority of youth decedents were male (79.2%), non-Hispanic White (59.6%) and died by firearm (51.1%). [1]
Somehow when they kill themselves it's fine, not even worth mentioning, but when women "consider killing themselves" it's a big problem.
[1] https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/newsroom/news-releases/2...
In my opinion it seems that as the more information technology progresses, the less time people spend actually face-to-face with each other, and they sink into depressive thoughts for a variety of reasons. Especially teenagers whose minds haven’t fully developed.
I’m not advocating the Amish lifestyle, but I’d bet anything that Amish teenagers have much less mental issues than today’s youth.
But I think in terms of mental health at least, the luddites are right.
This is especially true for LGBTQ youth in rural areas.
I have some doubt.
Eight-in-ten teens say that what they see on social media makes them feel more connected to what's going on in their friends' lives, while 71% say it makes them feel like they have a place where they can show their creative side. And 67% say these platforms make them feel as if they have people who can support them through tough times. A smaller share - though still a majority – say the same for feeling more accepted. These positive sentiments are expressed by teens across demographic groups.
When asked about the overall impact of social media on them personally, more teens say its effect has been mostly positive (32%) than say it has been mostly negative (9%). The largest share describes its impact in neutral terms: 59% believe social media has had neither a positive nor a negative effect on them. For teens who view social media's effect on them as mostly positive, many describe maintaining friendships, building connections, or accessing information as main reasons they feel this way, with one teen saying:
"It connects me with the world, provides an outlet to learn things I otherwise wouldn't have access to, and allows me to discover and explore interests." - Teen girl
ref:https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2022/11/16/connection-c...
For a few years we've had studies come out about teen mental health and social media. They'll read something like 33% report harm, 33% report benefit while 33% show neither. The headlines nearly unanimously read as "33% of youth report varying levels of harm while another third show no benefit at all." The remaining third doesn't even get a squeak in the articles.
I have no love for social media and the odd HN post is about as close as I get. But I also have no love for the snipe hunt that is One Single Cause for long-building, complex, multi-faceted problems.
Particularly, things that people exposed to them perceive as relieving certain negative feelings (whether of disconnection, etc.) can sometimes be relieving them only compared to an elevated baseline that they create (for, e.g., cults, this create-and-then-be-seen-as-needed-through-partial-relief–for-problem effect is often a deliberate strategy, and it may be for social media either deliberate or just a commercial optimum locked into by A/B testing engagement (creating both an elevated feeling of social isolation and need for connection and then a partial relief for that need).
Or maybe the self-reported effect is correct, and the perception social media is problematic on those points is wrong. But there is at least a plausible way the user-perceived effect could be wrong that is consistent with effects seen elsewhere.
As another example, I doubt as a teenager that I would have acknowledge, even to myself, that my - admittedly mild - alcohol use was bad for me.
Youth mental health studies are typically based on self-reported data because the person who is in a place to report on that head - is the person with that head.
> Having two kids, I know that they think sitting in bed all day, every day on their screens is often what they want to do
What else is there for youth to do? Over a few generations, adults have systematically erased every sq foot of free-range land. In it's place are 2 ft wide walking strips lined by 40mph 2 ton death blocks.
We've pumped every head full of fully-false stranger risk. We've positioned kids and parents alike to make sure kids have 0 minutes a year of ability-building, unsupervised time. We've fairly well wiped out extended families and insured every kid is raised by never more than two adults who work full time, with anyone who might have better parenting experience buffered safely away from the people who need it.
In short, we've wiped out everything that built self-sufficiency in kids and replaced it with systems that repeatedly punish for kid-level transgressions and make sure those penalties harm them as much as possible.
And for good measure there's always a ton of adults going on endlessly about how much today's youth suck.
This is largely an American problem, but it's worth noting that in many places in America, these "walking strips" actually don't exist at all! So depending on where you are and where you want to walk, there might be no safe way to do so; sidewalks are frequently haphazardly placed or an afterthought, if they're there at all. In many municipalities, homeowners actively petition the city to not have any sidewalks, because they don't want to deal with the legal liabilities that result from having them in one's yard.
Anyway, overall I agree. In America, there really is nothing else for youth to do, so they should just stay home and play video games. Prospective parents who don't want this for their kids should either abstain from having children until the country gets its act together, or move to a country that's better for raising children.