First: the never-mentioned context<\/strong><\/p>\n Popular discussion of what we call \u201cteenage suicide\u201d and drug overdose is so horrendously messed up that we have to begin with basic context. Below is the\u00a0CDC\u2019s latest tabulation<\/a>\u00a0of suicides and overdose deaths by age group for 2024 and around one-fourth into 2025:<\/p>\n The population sizes from 10-14 through 60-64 are similar, so these numbers indicate relative odds of suicide and overdose by age.<\/p>\n These are tragic numbers, much worse in the United States than in other nations. I would not argue for a second that 4,300 teen age 10-19 deaths from suicides and overdoses in approximately 15 months aren\u2019t heartbreaking, both for the youths and those who cared about them.<\/p>\n Having said that, I will never understand the relentlessly destructive crusade by authorities and media to convince teenagers that suicide and drug abuse are normative to adolescence. In fact, teenagers are substantially less likely to commit suicide or overdose than adults are, a fact that should top all analyses.<\/p>\n In that respect, wouldn\u2019t the 44,500 deaths from suicides and fatal overdoses among 40-49-year-olds \u2013 the average ages of teens\u2019 parents, relatives, and nearby adults \u2013 also be terrible tragedies occurring at a level\u00a010 times higher<\/em>?<\/p>\n Deaths are just the iceberg tip of much larger abuse, mental health, addiction, absence, and violence issues that afflict troubled families in which millions of teenagers are growing up.<\/p>\n Have media-featured psychologists Jonathan Haidt, Jean Twenge, other popular commentators, political leaders, health professionals, and news reports shown any sensitivity or caring toward children and teens suffering parents\u2019 and nearby adults\u2019 suicide and drug abuse? Have any reported\u00a0CDC survey<\/a>\u00a0findings that teens with troubled parents are much more likely to be troubled themselves? Somewhere between rarely and never.<\/p>\n Second: Teens have told us what drives suicide \u2013 we just don\u2019t like their answers<\/strong><\/p>\n The \u201cteen suicide\u201d discussion veers farther off the rails when we examine authorities\u2019 rampant distortions of causal factors.<\/p>\n As I point out regularly (because no one else is), thousands of America\u2019s teenagers told our largest, most definitive CDC\u00a0adolescent health survey<\/a>\u00a0in no uncertain terms \u2013 twice \u2013 what the biggest factors contributing to their suicidal feelings and attempts are.<\/p>\n Teenagers\u2019 answers on the massive 2021 and 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys were so consistent and compelling that CDC\u00a0analysts<\/a>\u00a0concluded in the in-house\u00a0Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report<\/em>\u00a0that three major childhood experiences \u2013 parents\u2019 and household grownups\u2019 \u201cemotional abuse\u201d, \u201cphysical abuse\u201d, and \u201cpoor mental health\u201d \u2013 were the driving factors in teenagers\u2019 \u201csuicide attempts (89.4%), seriously considering attempting suicide (85.4%), and prescription opioid misuse (84.3%).\u201d<\/p>\n That is, for the factors we know about,\u00a0nearly all teenage suicide and opiate abuse<\/em>\u00a0are associated with parents\u2019 and household adults\u2019 abuse, violence, and troubles. Virtually none are driven by social media.<\/p>\n So, how do authorities (mis)characterize these cold numbers?<\/strong><\/p>\n Again, let\u2019s look at all the things public commentators and authorities leave out. The 2023\u00a0CDC survey<\/a> finds, not shockingly, that teens who are abused by parents and household adults and have violent homes are far more likely to suffer poor mental health, make suicide attempts, and harm themselves.<\/p>\n No ambiguity there. Before skeptics shrug that teens always think their parents are crazy and abusive, consider that\u00a0these are the same teens<\/em>\u00a0on the\u00a0same survey<\/em>\u00a0whose answers authorities incessantly cite as proving the teenage \u201cmental health crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n The CDC survey contains another never-mentioned bombshell: abused teens from abusive and violent families, particularly girls, use social media considerably more than teens from healthy families.<\/p>\n I wish I was making this next part up\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2026 because I can\u2019t believe it, either. The pretzel-twisted consensus of leading officials and commentators from this compelling information seems to be:<\/p>\n \u00b7 Teens are\u00a0being truthful<\/em>\u00a0when they report their levels of depression and social media use; therefore, social media is causing their depression.<\/p>\n \u00b7 However, those same exact teens on the same surveys are\u00a0not being truthful<\/em>\u00a0when they report widespread abuse and violence by parents and household grownups; therefore, those survey answers can just be ignored.<\/p>\n Are top health, political, interest-group, and media-quotable authorities like Haidt and Twenge simply incompetent charlatans ignorant of the basic data shown on major health surveys, or dishonest distorters of crucial facts? We can certainly see the mentality that enables the Jeffrey Epstein perfidy.<\/p>\n Now it gets really bad<\/strong><\/p>\n The\u00a0CDC survey<\/a>\u00a0further shows that for abused teens,\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0social media use may be associated with\u00a0less<\/em>\u00a0suicide and self harm.<\/p>\n At first glance, this table would seem to validate concerns about social media. Looking only at the top three lines, abused teens who seldom use social media (less than daily) are considerably LESS likely to report frequently poor mental health (48.4%) than abused teens who use social media several times a day (62.4%).<\/p>\n Officials and popular commentators abruptly stop there: look, social media use and the cyberbullying it fosters makes teens more depressed. Don\u2019t go any further!<\/p>\n Of course, that could be a reverse correlation: perhaps depression makes teens use social media more. What evidence suggests this is the more likely scenario?<\/p>\n Look at the next 6 lines. Abused teens who seldom use social media report being LESS depressed but MORE likely to attempt suicide (16.6%) and harm themselves (5.7%) than abused teens who use social media often every day (14.4% and 3.1%, respectively).<\/p>\n Presented more starkly and singling out teenage girls about whom authorities vent so much concern: 40% of abused girls who seldom use social media attempt suicide and 14% harm themselves, compared to 25% and 6%, respectively, of abused girls who use social media several times a day. Those are large differences reported by the most troubled population.<\/p>\n Talk about turning discussion on its head. We\u2019re constantly hammered with zero-evidence emotionalities that more social media use drives more teens to suicide and self-harm when the best evidence indicates the opposite is more likely.<\/p>\n Again, though, we have to be wary of which way associations and correlations (especially ones that conveniently seem to validate our pet theories<\/em>) really go. Perhaps teens who use social media more are simply more social, more inclined to seek help from others, in the first place. That would make social media less a savior of troubled teens and more just one of their self-help tools.<\/p>\n In any case, I can\u2019t be the only one who looked at the CDC\u2019s 2021 and 2023 surveys who noticed this obvious but fascinating pattern. So, wouldn\u2019t you think these intriguing numbers from our largest, best surveys of teenagers would give authorities pause \u2013 at least provoke calls for further investigation \u2013 before rushing to demand wholesale bans and restrictions on teens\u2019 cellphone and social media use?<\/p>\n If so, please send me your bank account passwords<\/strong><\/p>\n I credit authorities, politicians, and media-beloved figures like psychologists Haidt and Twenge with scholarly awareness of teens\u2019 complicated answers. It doesn\u2019t take a post-doctorate stat-phenom to do cross-tabulation and regression analyses.<\/p>\n The CDC even tried to help them by issuing a\u00a0colorful public report<\/a>\u00a0weakly blaming social media, cyberbullying, and peer bullying for teen troubles. Unfortunately for that cause, the report\u2019s own numbers showed that even assuming social media and peer bullying are the only factors in teens\u2019 lives, they are still associated with only trivial fractions of teens\u2019 poor mental health and not at all with teens\u2019 suicides\u2026 nothing like the 84%-89% associations the CDC found for parents\u2019 abuses and afflictions.<\/p>\n Then, former Surgeon General Vivek Murtha issued a generally informative\u00a0report on parents\u2019<\/a>\u00a0disturbingly widespread, rising mental health, drug\/alcohol, and abusiveness that, well, just might, sort of, maybe, in the nicest wording possible, help explain teens\u2019 mental health problems. That report, like the\u00a0CDC\u2019s survey analysis<\/a>, was largely ignored by popular authorities and commentators.<\/p>\n Bummer<\/strong><\/p>\n Even if science decidedly is not on their side, political leaders, pop-commentators, and media reporters can still invoke the old fallback: wildly hyping rare anecdotes in which a teen\u2019s suicide or overdose possibly could be blamed on social media, peer bullying, and\/or Artificial Intelligence (AI) and embellished as a \u201cwake-up call!\u201d revealing a heretofore hidden teen crisis.<\/p>\n The\u00a0New York Times<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and dozens of\u00a0popular media<\/a>\u00a0recently featured a teenager who committed suicide after receiving bad advice from an AI robot. The\u00a0New Yorker<\/em>\u00a0ran a lengthy article on a teen who committed suicide after encountering bullying on social media, also a media theme when a case can be found.<\/p>\n Their stories deserve coverage (which they get) \u2013 and, even more, their\u00a0full<\/em>\u00a0stories and context (which they never get).<\/p>\n The best evidence suggests small fractions of teens and adults have prior troubles that make them vulnerable to exacerbation by social media and AI technology, just as to family abuses, religion, harsh schooling, and other aspects of life. (For example, 82% of teens who tell CDC surveys they\u2019ve been cyberbullied also report being emotionally abused by parents and household adults, yet another never-mentioned fact.)<\/p>\n If we only consider externally-driven destroyers of young lives, why aren\u2019t stories like the mentally disturbed mother who hounded her severely troubled husband and young son into\u00a0killing themselves<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 exactly what the\u00a0NYT<\/em>\u00a0feature accused one teen\u2019s AI robot of doing \u2013 as well as more parent-inflicted\u00a0murders<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0suicides<\/a>\u00a0victimizing children featured just the week this is written, far more prevalent \u201cwake-up calls\u201d?<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/$s_!BDvT!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F27c0be3e-4864-4a19-9df1-6aa79d70734c_9070x6539.png\")
<\/p>\nSource:\u00a0CDC 2025<\/a>. Overdoses refers to illicit, non-prescribed drugs.<\/h5>\n
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<\/p>\nSources for tables:\u00a0CDC, 2023<\/a>.<\/h5>\n
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