New pressures for perfection contribute to rise in teen suicide

morekaos

Well-known member
This series is far more relevant for parents on this board than gun control.  I applaud OC Register for addressing this new problem in this series.  Unlike a mass school shooting, we unfortunately, have a much higher probability of being touched by this type of tragedy in our lifetimes.  I know some of the families involved in this series and it's important to acknowledge and try to understand where our kids heads are so that this doesn't effect any of our families directly.

New pressures for perfection contribute to rise in teen suicide

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/16/new-pressures-for-perfection-contribute-to-rise-in-teen-suicide/

This 16-year-old?s suicide letters are a cry for help and a national call for change

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/19/this-16-year-olds-suicide-letters-are-a-cry-for-help-and-a-national-call-for-change/
 
I think those two articles hit the nail on the head.  Social media is driving the depression rate higher for teens, especially for girls, and this in turn is leading to a higher teen suicide rate than we've ever seen before.

There is a reason that many prominent tech executives will not let their kids use social media at all.  It is not a net contributor to happiness for anybody, but for teens especially it is something they are having a difficult time coping with.

The saddest thing is that this pressure to display a perfect life is opted into when they sign up for an account.

I'm glad that this research is coming out now while my kids are still young.  I'm going to take seriously my responsibility to limit their exposure to this stuff as they get older.
 
Teen suicide is soaring. Do spotty mental health and addiction treatment share blame?

J.C. Ruf, 16, was a Cincinnati-area pitcher who died by suicide in the laundry room of his house. Tayler Schmid, 17, was an avid pilot and hiker who chose the family garage in upstate New York. Josh Anderson, 17, of Vienna, Va., was a football player who killed himself the day before a school disciplinary hearing.

The young men were as different as the areas of the country where they lived. But they shared one thing in common: A despair so deep they thought suicide was the only way out.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/03/19/teen-suicide-soaring-do-spotty-mental-health-and-addiction-treatment-share-blame/428148002/
 
This can be really scary...

Internet a ?Lord of the Flies?: Teen suicide rise started after Instagram, Snapchat began

Experts point out the uptick in teen suicide started a few years after the launch of Instagram and Snapchat. They blame battles for digital ?likes? and Internet-induced stress over success on the field as well as in the classroom.

In 2014, Madison Holleran, a University of Pennsylvania freshman track star took her life. Around that time, a cluster of teens committed suicide in Palo Alto. In January, Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski took his life.

?We handed the most powerful tool known to man and gave it to children for them to play with and explore,? says Don Grant, chairman of the American Psychological Association Device Management Committee. ?Would you hand kids power tools and not expect something to happen??

Grant, a Los Angeles-based psychologist, calls the Internet a ?digital ?Lord of the Flies.?? He adds, ?There?s always going to be a Ralph, there?s always going to be a Piggy,? but the Internet amplifies and expands social hierarchies far beyond anything previous generations have faced.

For example, a girl swipes her smartphone and sees other girls she knows from school at the beach. How do you think she feels?

?Kids are sitting home alone, disenfranchised and disconnected,? Grant says. ?It?s very dark the way social currency is wielded. They watch the Kardashians and don?t know how to respond.?

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/03/21/teen-suicide-can-be-reduced-if-parents-educators-change-social-media-culture/
 
This is why I don't want my kids on social media.

They don't understand my concerns because "all their friends are on it".
 
Stay strong. Mine don't have Facebook, but neither one wants it.  They both have Instagram but we try our best to watch it and check it daily.  Snapchat is the wild west and it is forbotten as neither of us can moniter it adequately.  Its the best we can do bc I still think they need a working knowledge of this medium in order to function in today's society.  Sad but true that you may be hobbling them socially by not allowing them some exposure.
 
morekaos said:
Stay strong. Mine don't have Facebook, but neither one wants it.  They both have Instagram but we try our best to watch it and check it daily.  Snapchat is the wild west and it is forbotten as neither of us can moniter it adequately.  Its the best we can do bc I still think they need a working knowledge of this medium in order to function in today's society.  Sad but true that you may be hobbling them socially by not allowing them some exposure.

Snapchat isn't the wild west. IG has the same features that they copied from Snapchat.
 
Facebook sinking fast among US teens: survey
The Pew Research Center report confirms a trend seen in other surveys, showing a sharp drop in Facebook's share of what had long been a core age segment for the huge social network.

The survey found 51 percent of US teens ages 13 to 17 use Facebook, compared with 85 percent for YouTube, 72 percent for Instagram and 69 percent who are on Snapchat.

The landscape has shifted since a 2014-15 Pew survey which found Facebook leading other social networks with 71 percent of the teen segment.

According to the survey, 95 percent of the teens survey said they used a smartphone and 45 percent were online "almost constantly," with both figures showing increases from prior surveys.

"The social media environment among teens is quite different from what it was just three years ago," said Pew researcher Monica Anderson, the lead author of the report.

"Back then, teens' social media use mostly revolved around Facebook. Today, their habits revolve less around a single platform. At the same time we've seen this shift, teens are more digitally connected than ever."
https://phys.org/news/2018-05-facebook-fast-teens-survey.html
 
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