An excerpt from Facing Suicide: Understanding Why People Kill Themselves and How We Can Stop Them.
Between 2000 and 2007, suicide rates were almost stagnant for young people between the ages of ten and twenty-four. Then they began moving steadily upward. By 2018, suicides in this age group had increased 57.4 percent from 2007 levels. An economic crisis darkened that period, and according to online posts, some seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds felt like a burden because their families were overwhelmed by household expenses and had too many mouths to feed.
But something else was happening in the background. Social media was gaining a real foothold. In the past ten years, social network platforms have more than quadrupled their number of users—from 970 million in 2010 to 4.48 billion in 2021.
“Youth suicide rates turned upward at a time when social media were becoming more available,” psychiatrist Eric Caine, MD, of the University of Rochester Medical Center told me. In 2018, an academic review of literature supported this alarming correlation, stating that the “increase in suicide rates paralleled the increase in social media use.” In 2019, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported the astounding fact that mental health disorders have surpassed physical conditions as the most common complaints causing “impairment and limitation” among adolescents. That same year, the United States Surgeon General expressed alarm about the devastating mental health epidemic affecting American teens.
But was social media to blame? At least in part. A ten-year study of five hundred teens conducted by Brigham Young University beginning in 2009 showed that girls who used social media for two to three hours a day and increased their use over time developed a higher risk for suicide. An independent survey of US teens in grades eight through twelve and national statistics on suicide deaths for those ages thirteen to eighteen both showed that depressive symptoms, suicide-related injuries, and suicide rates all went up between 2010 and 2015, especially among girls. Teens who spent more time on new media, like social media and electronic devices such as smartphones, were more likely to say they had mental health problems. Teens who spent more time on non-screen activities, like in-person social interaction, sports/exercise, homework, print media, and religious services, were less likely to say they had mental health problems.
How else do social media and new media contribute to suicide? The ten-year study of five hundred teens suggested that young people who harm themselves are more active on social networks than young people who don’t engage in self-harm. Self-harm generally consists of cutting, burning, or hitting oneself, often without the intent to die. However, those who engage in self-harm are at significant risk for suicide. As Moutier says, some may be seeking help online and are rewarded with supportive messages. But the opposite can also be true. Online help-seeking is often met with derision, which can fuel self-harm. And young people engaging in self-harm find messages that encourage their behavior and even copy the dangerous actions of others shared in messages or videos.
Danish suicide expert Annette Erlangsen, PhD, who studies suicide in Denmark and the United States, observed darker online connections. “We do know suicide pacts that have been established through Facebook or group forums, where people are discussing thoughts of suicide and maybe even trying to promote or trigger others to carry out suicidal acts. So we have examples where we can clearly see that social media has had a bad impact.”
At least one social media giant has studied the life-threatening impacts its sites cause and has done nothing about them. In 2021, The Wall Street Journal reported that internal documents prepared by researchers at Facebook showed that the company had long been aware that it contributed to mental health disorders in young people. They found that Instagram, its photo-based site, made body-image problems worse for about 30 percent of female teenage users and added to depression and anxiety. Another internal report showed that among teens who reported suicidal ideas, 6 percent of American users and 13 percent of British users traced the desire to kill themselves to Instagram. These revelations came courtesy of whistleblower Frances Haugen. In May 2021, she quit her job as a product manager at Facebook and took tens of thousands of internal papers with her. The records, made public in newspaper articles, have led to a flurry of accusations and lawsuits from eight states.
Meta Platforms, the company that owns both Facebook and Instagram, is in the crosshairs of litigation that accuses it of causing eating disorders, despair, and even deaths among adolescents and teenagers. In 2021, the parents of Englyn Roberts, a Louisiana teenager, brought a case against Instagram. According to their suit, Englyn was “bombarded by harmful photos and videos,” including “violent and distressing content celebrating self-harm and death.” As Englyn interacted with these images and videos, carefully crafted algorithms offered up more and more similar content, trapping the teenager in a dangerous cycle. Englyn began sharing films of herself and her friends committing self-harm. In August 2020, copying a video she had seen online, Englyn tried to take her life in the same manner. After days on life support, she died.
Her parents’ suit alleges her death was the direct result of psychic damage brought on by her compulsive use of social media, particularly Instagram. Englyn Roberts was just fourteen.
James Barrat is a journalist and author of Facing Suicide: Understanding Why People Kill Themselves and How We Can Stop Them.
