{"id":161401,"date":"2026-07-20T17:35:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T00:35:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=161401"},"modified":"2026-08-21T13:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T20:37:22","slug":"teenage-boys-show-major-declines-in-suicide-across-the-globe-as-their-social-media-use-grew","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=161401","title":{"rendered":"Teenage boys show major declines in suicide across the globe as their social media use grew"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| July 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

83% of countries with reliable reporting show plunging suicide rates by teenage boys as social media proliferated. Does social media actually prevent suicide?<\/h6>\n

The trend is amazing \u2013 and completely destroys the myths of rising teen self-destruction that are flooding major media and political forms.<\/p>\n

Teenaged boys show plummeting suicide rates in country after country, from Korea and Australia to France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, Canada, and Chile.<\/p>\n

An astounding 34 of 41 countries that provide reasonably\u00a0complete mortality numbers<\/a>\u00a0over the last 30 years showed suicide declines for boys age 15-19; 36 of 41 for boys ages 10-14.<\/p>\n

This is a huge deal. Boys account for 60% to 80% of teen suicides, depending on the country. The plunge in boys\u2019 suicides is even more impressive than the\u00a0stunning suicide decline among teenage girls<\/a>\u00a0in two-thirds of the countries investigated.<\/p>\n

The official response has been disgraceful demagoguery. The massive decline in suicides by teens seems horrifying to authorities bent on blaming social media for teen distress who are trumpeting the exact opposite.<\/p>\n

The most that arch-advocates of banning teens from social media like\u00a0Jonathan Haidt, Zach Rausch, and Jean Twenge<\/a>\u00a0can bring themselves to confess from their own biased analyses: \u201cnot much happens for the male suicide rate among adolescents.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot much\u201d? The trend isn\u2019t subtle. Blind mice could see it (Table 1).<\/p>\n

\u00b7 4 countries show increased suicide in the 1995-2023 period for both younger and older teen boys: the United States, Japan, Mexico, and Argentina.<\/h4>\n

\u00b7 33 countries led by France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Korea, Russia, Canada, Australia, Poland, Romania, Chile, etc., show decreased suicide rates for boys during that period.<\/h4>\n

\u00b7 4 nations variously show increases or decreases depending on boys\u2019 ages.<\/h4>\n

Table 1.<\/strong>\u00a0Suicide trends by teenage boys ages 10-14 and 15-19 by nation, 1995 to 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Source: Global Burden of Disease, University of Washington School of Medicine\u00a0Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation<\/a>\u00a0(2026),\u00a0Data tool<\/a>. Suicides are deaths from \u201cself-harm.\u201d Rates are suicides per 100,000 population by country. \u201cSocial media era\u201d is 1995 through 2023. Rates and changes are calculated using standard regression that incorporates all 28 years of data into a linear trendline. Trends derived from WHO mortality data are similar. See\u00a0last substack\u2019s note<\/a>\u00a0on method.*<\/h5>\n

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control\u2019s massive\u00a0Youth Risk Behavior surveys<\/a>\u00a0confirm that social media may play a role in reducing suicide \u2013 though scientific rigor demands more cautious analysis. Causation requires powerful evidence that goes far beyond the weak-effect \u201ccorrelation-equals-causation\u201d notions (see meta-analyses by psychologist\u00a0Christopher Ferguson<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0other statisticians<\/a>)\u00a0now touted daily in breathless media reports and political assertions that social media harms young people.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, along with widespread suicide declines as youthful use of social media proliferated, boys report some encouraging personal indications.<\/p>\n

Table 2. The more teenage boys use social media, the less likely they are to harm themselves or attempt suicide<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Source:\u00a0CDC, YRBS, 2023<\/a>; total n=6,812.<\/h5>\n

These results are similar though less extreme than those found for girls in the previous substack. Self-harm and suicide attempts rise sharply as abuse levels increase, but social media use is associated with lower self-destruction.<\/p>\n

As in the previous\u00a0substack on girls<\/a>, we have to ask again why authorities are so indifferent and hostile to teenagers\u2019 well-being that they willfully ignore and distort clear evidence \u2013 not conclusive proof, but solid evidence \u2013 that social media may reduce suicidal behaviors and deaths, or at least provide abused and distressed teens outlets to connect with\u00a0others who can help<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That both boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 suicide rates have been declining in the large majority of countries that can be assessed is yet another argument for halting and reversing the current official stampede to ban teenagers from social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| July 2026 83% of countries with reliable reporting show plunging suicide rates by teenage boys as social media proliferated. Does social media actually prevent suicide? The trend is amazing \u2013 and completely destroys the myths of rising teen self-destruction that are flooding major media and political forms. Teenaged boys show<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161402,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161401\/revisions\/161402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}