Thank you for bringing together the international data. I agree that the rise in suicide among adolescent girls deserves serious attention. The evidence increasingly suggests this is not simply an American phenomenon.
Where I think we need to be careful is the step from an international trend to an international cause.
The figures demonstrate that something has changed for younger cohorts. They do not tell us what that change is.
For example, the Japanese data are particularly interesting. Female suicide rates appear to decline until around 2016 before reversing sharply. That raises questions about timing and mechanism that deserve investigation rather than assumption.
More fundamentally, I wonder whether we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking, "What is social media doing to children?", perhaps we should also ask, "What makes some children vulnerable to social media in the first place?"
Adolescence has always involved comparison, status, rejection, belonging and uncertainty. Social media may have industrialised those experiences, making them continuous, measurable and inescapable. But that is different from saying it created the underlying vulnerability.
If social media is primarily exploiting vulnerability rather than creating it, the implications are profound.
Removing social media may reduce one source of harm, but it does not necessarily make young people more resilient. AI will almost certainly become even better at identifying and exploiting individual vulnerabilities.
That suggests our long-term challenge is not simply to protect children from technology, but to prepare them for a world increasingly designed to manipulate attention, emotion and behaviour.
Perhaps the more important question is not, "How do we regulate social media?" but "What kind of human beings should childhood be developing?"
If we get childhood right—secure relationships, sleep, movement, autonomy, curiosity, emotional regulation and critical thinking—we may find that social media becomes less able to exploit the vulnerabilities that concern us all.
yep, every tool is a weapon and vice versa - full of tradeoffs, devilish details and unintended consequences. Life is never black-or-white, good-or-bad binary. Some bans make sense - we can all agree on that fairly short list - and it's longer of course for young people. But some bans feel like knee-jerk reactions to the negatives of any tech and blowing off or minimizing the positives.
Barney, I agree. My concern is that we often confuse the existence of collateral damage with evidence that something should be banned. Almost every worthwhile human activity has benefits and costs. Cycling kills children every year, yet we don't ban cycling. We improve roads, teach road safety, wear helmets and accept that the overall benefit to society outweighs the residual risk.
I think social media deserves the same utilitarian analysis. We should ask: what are the benefits, what are the harms, and how do we reduce the latter without sacrificing the former? If we skip the first question and focus only on harm, we risk solving one problem while creating another. The challenge is not to eliminate risk from childhood—that is impossible—but to raise children who can increasingly navigate a risky world with wisdom and resilience.
Agreed! We also know that bans of things we find interesting or are "hooked" on often backfire, just pushing things backstage and underground. Banned books fly off the shelves during Banned Books Week - the excitement of the forbidden is just one factor. Trying to meet in the middle and respectfully seek compromise on tough issues is the only path forward. Everything else just plays into what I refer to as the "Blame Society." ("Rejecting the Blame Society" is one of my several blogs, but I'll spare you;-)
There's a correlation with the uptick in prescriptions of psych drugs that have suicidality as a side effect. Must be examined in order to get the full picture.
Yeah, and it looks like some of the results are on par. I'm all for gender equality, but not in high suicide rate statistics. . We need to get those numbers lower
How do you use the suffering to twist it around like that? If it was a sodgen, then it would always be high. Misogyny didn't uptick. It's always been there.The censorship made it worse.
It's transmissogny. The more bigotry and political division and not to mention the very bleak economic outlook.. i think jonathan haydt he's off his rocker, especially when it comes to social media bans... sure, algorithms suck and social media should absolutely pay some of the blame. On the other hand it's just too convenient of an answer.
Thank you for this. The research is done well, and establishing that this is a global pattern — not an American anomaly — matters enormously.
As a hospital psychiatrist, I talk to teens the morning after suicide attempts every week. From my vantage point the picture is more complex than any single cause.
Social media certainly plays a role. But the rise in girls' suicides tracks alongside other trends. For example rising cannabis use — which in teenage girls specifically predicts later depression and carries 2–4 times higher risk of suicidal thoughts. Or a shift toward more lethal methods (hanging). Girls' rates remain lower than boys', so part of the apparent convergence may simply be lethality catching up with intent.
But whatever the mechanism, the message is clear. These kids are trying to escape their lives and suicide is the ultimate escape - the endpoint of the same impulse that drives the scrolling, the weed, the online gambling.
So the question is what are they trying to escape? And why they want to flee the life we built for them?
This piece made me dig deep — more thoughts than fit in a comment. I'll try to organize it is a future essey. Thank you for the push.
Teen boys suicide is also rising but teen girls are disproportionately affected by social media which turns pubescent girls into demonic beings of reputation destruction(beyond metaphor— if you had to be a teen girl in today's age of utter sadism and psychopathic selfishness and sexual competitiveness, you too would want to die)
I don't know. Is that was the case then... the algorithm would be and qatar, different in each country, I think they're regulated.. i'm sorry, but christopher ferguson? I believe him. there's many moral panics, and I don't think we can jump to conclusions just yet. The world isn't messi? And i'm sure a convenient scapegoat is exactly what the real causes of this problem would love to blame it on.
You wouldn’t want to be a Spanish man. Suicide rates for them are a multiple of those for women. Is that replicated internationally? If so, while every suicide is a tragedy, shouldn’t that be our focus of attention?
It's also when the net started getting more constrained. Censorial. Especially for south korea.
Suicide survivor myself, I know that's what it is for me.
By the way, the kids act appears to make sure that social media companies cannot be sued for their algorithms, but meanwhile, they'll be punished. If they don't take down a post that the f t c doesn't like.
Expect to see more suicides in the future. As the FTC and project 2025 block off more lifelines and age gate the internet. This is going to have negative health impacts.
None of it makes sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was economic factors as well. Teen girls suicide rising up. This isn't the kind of equality I was looking forward to.
Grateful to see your writing here. I am starting my writing in Substack in order to clear my head on the evolution of technology and human agency. Thank you for bring valuable information
Are you looking for data in Latin American countries? It is super important nowadays to support the legislative process to ban social media (Colombia just started the process this week)
These statistics are helpful in understanding youth suicide rates and its gender implications. I am personally interested in research on an increase in suicidality and suicidal talk among teens which in my work with parents of teens seems to be skyrocketing. Have I missed research of yours that investigates this separate from the suicide statistics themselves?
An Ice Age brain handed a mirror that reflects eight billion people — each one selected by the algorithm precisely because they outshine you. No wonder something in the reflection cracks.
(Fellow SHS grad '80 here) I've been following all this as best I can thanks to you. I have been working with teen girls and Young Adults in psychotherapy for 3 decades. Every time you post it validates my own work. The self-conscious style of rumination and black and white thin king is what I see the most. I encourage them to get out and fail (Meg Jay) and learn, and grow and be vulnerable and resilient (brene brown), not to hide in their rooms... (among other things)!
‘Smart’phone usage and dependance (particularly but not limited to) at a young age, has been proven to be a major cause of the current mental health crisis, suicide, and self-harm. The issue extends throughout the western world with a massive surge prior to the introduction of this technology.
Thank you for bringing together the international data. I agree that the rise in suicide among adolescent girls deserves serious attention. The evidence increasingly suggests this is not simply an American phenomenon.
Where I think we need to be careful is the step from an international trend to an international cause.
The figures demonstrate that something has changed for younger cohorts. They do not tell us what that change is.
For example, the Japanese data are particularly interesting. Female suicide rates appear to decline until around 2016 before reversing sharply. That raises questions about timing and mechanism that deserve investigation rather than assumption.
More fundamentally, I wonder whether we are asking the wrong question.
Instead of asking, "What is social media doing to children?", perhaps we should also ask, "What makes some children vulnerable to social media in the first place?"
Adolescence has always involved comparison, status, rejection, belonging and uncertainty. Social media may have industrialised those experiences, making them continuous, measurable and inescapable. But that is different from saying it created the underlying vulnerability.
If social media is primarily exploiting vulnerability rather than creating it, the implications are profound.
Removing social media may reduce one source of harm, but it does not necessarily make young people more resilient. AI will almost certainly become even better at identifying and exploiting individual vulnerabilities.
That suggests our long-term challenge is not simply to protect children from technology, but to prepare them for a world increasingly designed to manipulate attention, emotion and behaviour.
Perhaps the more important question is not, "How do we regulate social media?" but "What kind of human beings should childhood be developing?"
If we get childhood right—secure relationships, sleep, movement, autonomy, curiosity, emotional regulation and critical thinking—we may find that social media becomes less able to exploit the vulnerabilities that concern us all.
And also a good education. You can have a good childhood and be very susceptible to moral panics.
yep, every tool is a weapon and vice versa - full of tradeoffs, devilish details and unintended consequences. Life is never black-or-white, good-or-bad binary. Some bans make sense - we can all agree on that fairly short list - and it's longer of course for young people. But some bans feel like knee-jerk reactions to the negatives of any tech and blowing off or minimizing the positives.
Barney, I agree. My concern is that we often confuse the existence of collateral damage with evidence that something should be banned. Almost every worthwhile human activity has benefits and costs. Cycling kills children every year, yet we don't ban cycling. We improve roads, teach road safety, wear helmets and accept that the overall benefit to society outweighs the residual risk.
I think social media deserves the same utilitarian analysis. We should ask: what are the benefits, what are the harms, and how do we reduce the latter without sacrificing the former? If we skip the first question and focus only on harm, we risk solving one problem while creating another. The challenge is not to eliminate risk from childhood—that is impossible—but to raise children who can increasingly navigate a risky world with wisdom and resilience.
Agreed! We also know that bans of things we find interesting or are "hooked" on often backfire, just pushing things backstage and underground. Banned books fly off the shelves during Banned Books Week - the excitement of the forbidden is just one factor. Trying to meet in the middle and respectfully seek compromise on tough issues is the only path forward. Everything else just plays into what I refer to as the "Blame Society." ("Rejecting the Blame Society" is one of my several blogs, but I'll spare you;-)
There's a correlation with the uptick in prescriptions of psych drugs that have suicidality as a side effect. Must be examined in order to get the full picture.
Do you know the stat for teen boys? I don't know but I would suspect it has also risen.
Yeah, and it looks like some of the results are on par. I'm all for gender equality, but not in high suicide rate statistics. . We need to get those numbers lower
misogyny is now universal.
Here is an example https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/02/international-network-drug-facilitated-rape-uncovered-by-uk-crime-agency
How do you use the suffering to twist it around like that? If it was a sodgen, then it would always be high. Misogyny didn't uptick. It's always been there.The censorship made it worse.
https://www.malaymail.com/news/life/2026/07/01/inside-south-koreas-expanding-digital-sex-abuse-networks-victims-say-the-system-still-fails-them/225953
It's transmissogny. The more bigotry and political division and not to mention the very bleak economic outlook.. i think jonathan haydt he's off his rocker, especially when it comes to social media bans... sure, algorithms suck and social media should absolutely pay some of the blame. On the other hand it's just too convenient of an answer.
Agree with that except the missogny part otherwise you got it right.
How do you mean? With the world becoming less accepting of lgbt individuals Then, of course, they're going to commit suicide.
???
Thank you for this. The research is done well, and establishing that this is a global pattern — not an American anomaly — matters enormously.
As a hospital psychiatrist, I talk to teens the morning after suicide attempts every week. From my vantage point the picture is more complex than any single cause.
Social media certainly plays a role. But the rise in girls' suicides tracks alongside other trends. For example rising cannabis use — which in teenage girls specifically predicts later depression and carries 2–4 times higher risk of suicidal thoughts. Or a shift toward more lethal methods (hanging). Girls' rates remain lower than boys', so part of the apparent convergence may simply be lethality catching up with intent.
But whatever the mechanism, the message is clear. These kids are trying to escape their lives and suicide is the ultimate escape - the endpoint of the same impulse that drives the scrolling, the weed, the online gambling.
So the question is what are they trying to escape? And why they want to flee the life we built for them?
This piece made me dig deep — more thoughts than fit in a comment. I'll try to organize it is a future essey. Thank you for the push.
You may argue social media falls into the same categories, but others beg to differ. Here's a Ted talk on one aspect. https://www.ted.com/talks/candice_odgers_what_we_re_getting_wrong_about_teens_and_tech?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare
Ted talks are for those who wish to be intellectual without actually being one. Go to the data
Teen boys suicide is also rising but teen girls are disproportionately affected by social media which turns pubescent girls into demonic beings of reputation destruction(beyond metaphor— if you had to be a teen girl in today's age of utter sadism and psychopathic selfishness and sexual competitiveness, you too would want to die)
I don't know. Is that was the case then... the algorithm would be and qatar, different in each country, I think they're regulated.. i'm sorry, but christopher ferguson? I believe him. there's many moral panics, and I don't think we can jump to conclusions just yet. The world isn't messi? And i'm sure a convenient scapegoat is exactly what the real causes of this problem would love to blame it on.
You wouldn’t want to be a Spanish man. Suicide rates for them are a multiple of those for women. Is that replicated internationally? If so, while every suicide is a tragedy, shouldn’t that be our focus of attention?
It's also when the net started getting more constrained. Censorial. Especially for south korea.
Suicide survivor myself, I know that's what it is for me.
By the way, the kids act appears to make sure that social media companies cannot be sued for their algorithms, but meanwhile, they'll be punished. If they don't take down a post that the f t c doesn't like.
Expect to see more suicides in the future. As the FTC and project 2025 block off more lifelines and age gate the internet. This is going to have negative health impacts.
None of it makes sense.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was economic factors as well. Teen girls suicide rising up. This isn't the kind of equality I was looking forward to.
Grateful to see your writing here. I am starting my writing in Substack in order to clear my head on the evolution of technology and human agency. Thank you for bring valuable information
Are you looking for data in Latin American countries? It is super important nowadays to support the legislative process to ban social media (Colombia just started the process this week)
These statistics are helpful in understanding youth suicide rates and its gender implications. I am personally interested in research on an increase in suicidality and suicidal talk among teens which in my work with parents of teens seems to be skyrocketing. Have I missed research of yours that investigates this separate from the suicide statistics themselves?
An Ice Age brain handed a mirror that reflects eight billion people — each one selected by the algorithm precisely because they outshine you. No wonder something in the reflection cracks.
Look at the suicide rates in the United States. In some areas, suicide rates have more than doubled in the past 20 years.
But you don’t have to take my word for it. Read Ephesians.
(Fellow SHS grad '80 here) I've been following all this as best I can thanks to you. I have been working with teen girls and Young Adults in psychotherapy for 3 decades. Every time you post it validates my own work. The self-conscious style of rumination and black and white thin king is what I see the most. I encourage them to get out and fail (Meg Jay) and learn, and grow and be vulnerable and resilient (brene brown), not to hide in their rooms... (among other things)!
http://www.phonedemic.com
‘Smart’phone usage and dependance (particularly but not limited to) at a young age, has been proven to be a major cause of the current mental health crisis, suicide, and self-harm. The issue extends throughout the western world with a massive surge prior to the introduction of this technology.
I wonder if there may be a cultural component (thinking about Geert Hofstede's work) that increases the efficacy of social media.