Can Social Media Use Lead to Suicides in Teens?

Screen time should be considered a risk factor for depression and suicide, according to the authors of a recent study.

Seeking to determine if the prevalence of depressive symptoms and suicide-related outcomes have increased in nationally representative samples of US adolescents and whether these trends differ by age, gender, race, region, and socioeconomic status, as well as potential causes of these trends, researchers examined data from the Monitoring the Future survey, Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, and the US CDC data on suicide deaths since 1999.
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Overall, they found that in 2015, 33% more adolescents exhibited high levels of depressive symptoms, 12% more reported at least 1 suicide-related outcome, and 31% more died by suicide than in 2010, with increases in depressive symptoms and suicide-related outcomes driven by females.

Adolescents with greater screen times were significantly more likely to have high depressive symptoms or at least 1 suicide-related outcome, compared with those with lower screen times. These correlations were similar when controlled for sex, race, grad, and region, and were higher among girls than boys.

Indicators of economic recession, as well as academic pressure and amount of homework were not positively correlated with mental health symptoms.

“[T]he results show a clear pattern linking screen activities with higher levels of depressive symptoms/suicide-related outcomes and nonscreen activities with lower levels. All activities associated with higher depressive symptoms or suicide-related outcomes involved screens, and all activities associated with lower depressive symptoms or suicide-related outcomes did not involve screens,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Twenge JM, Joiner TE, Rogers ML, et al.Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time [published online November 14, 2017]. Clin Psychol Sci. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376