Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates • Hacker News Board

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#191

Post by siruncledrew » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

dpkonofa wrote: post #72

pm90 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense. But how do we address it? It’s not like we can stop the media from reporting on such things. Perhaps the show could have been rated for adults only? It seems like teens today do face challenges that weren’t faced by my generation or the ones before that. Social media, internet enabled always on devices seem to have changed the experience of being a teenager. Perhaps there are deeper issues at stake that…

>It’s not like we can stop the media from reporting on such things. Sure you can. Stop watching it. Tell your friends to stop watching it and why . The media nowadays is all about going over the top and sensationalizing things because that's what gets the eyeballs on the screens and that's where the advertisements get them money. Hurt their wallets and they'll stop.

The sentiment of exercising personal willpower to not do something is admirable, but if the "Just Say No" approach actually worked like in theory, then we wouldn't have these opioid epidemics either.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#192

Post by erik_seaberg » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

TheArcane wrote: post #97

mieseratte wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always wondered the validity of a "constitutional freedom" that allows random everyday people to own and operate tools that are essentially killing machines. Not sure why you put quotes around constitutional freedom. The reason for the amendment is such that when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights you can kill them with the killing machine. As simple as that.

> when someone or someones come along and attempt to abridge your rights Isn't that what highly trained and professional law enforcement is for? At least that's what they're for in my part of the world.

No. They might never show up, and you can't even sue them for negligence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia

Every adult should have the means to protect who they care about.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#193

Post by filoleg » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:31 PM UTC

nf8nnfufuu wrote: post #120

giggles_giggles wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that what shooters like/do not like can be generalized like this. I would have expected that it was more dependent upon the specific psychology of the shooter than this.

Especially since a lot of shooters end up dead by the end of the shooting, so it would be difficult to determine what they like about the reports of their amok run.

It is less about their enjoyment of the coverage post-factum (which they are, obviously, aware they won't be able to witness themselves), and more about "they will be talking about and covering my deeds even after I am gone, so i will go out with a splash." It is just a perverted version of "leaving a legacy" behind and being immortalized in the public eye.

If you take that away, there is not much "glory" or "legacy" left behind, which certainly would discourage a giant chunk of shooters.

Note: I watched the first season of that show, thought it was terrible, and was told that the second season was even worse. The writers should have presented the topic in a better and more mature way, but they ended up doing a poor job of it. While I believe that the show should not be banned and creators should not be held responsible for it (for many reasons, with the main two being the overreach of censorship and freedom of speech; it is a work of fiction, after all), I do believe that the coverage of shootings and similar events by the mainstream media should be somewhat regulated/normalized. Whether it happens through a carrot (news self-regulating themselves) or stick (gov-t imposed regulations) is up to them, but I would much rather prefer them take the carrot.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#194

Post by cameronbrown » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

probably_wrong wrote: post #125

pgrote wrote: post #6

"When researchers analyzed the data by sex, they found the increase in the suicide rate was primarily driven by significant increases in suicide in young males. While suicide rates for females increased after the show’s release, the increase was not statistically significant." I have watched the series. I wonder why males saw a significant increase in suicides if the show revolved around a female suicide. And, yes, I…

> I wonder why males saw a significant increase in suicides if the show revolved around a female suicide. As someone who didn't watch the series: perhaps the story is male-oriented, even if the character is a woman? As an example: imagine that you take the movie John Wick, redo the movie shot-by-shot and line-by-line with a woman replacing Keanu Reeves, and call it "Jean Wick". I bet it would still appeal to the exac…

Actors aren't fungible units - if you change an actor, especially to another gender, you're changing the character's body language and facial expressions at a minimum.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#195

Post by yifanl » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:32 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #138

yifanl wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how this is at all a relevant response?

Because if your goal is to prevent mass killings then you have to take into account that a vehicle is a viable substitute for a gun. I'm in favor of gun control but I don't think it's clear whether it would actually make it meaningfully harder for people who want to kill lots of people indiscriminately-ish. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack#List_of...

The question (as I read it) is "does human life have more value than the freedoms afforded to us by constitutional decree?" I'm personally struggling to find an answer either way, but I'd at least disagree that we can't weigh the text of a constitution against modern research.

That said, there's certainly another conversation over whether we should consider how valuable human life is compared to the conveniences modern tools like firearms and private vehicles give us. Or I guess we've already collectively decided that the answer is no.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#196

Post by umvi » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:35 PM UTC

mamon wrote: post #182

umvi wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that make it practically impossible for modern citizens to overthrow a corrupt government. Some of the citizens overthrowing the government would be in the military, though, no? Since the military is made up of normal people that live among civilians. It's more likely the military would split into factions, with the revolutionaries gaining control of a sizable chunk of tanks, airplanes, etc. Or maybe the military w…

>> Some of the citizens overthrowing the government would be in the military, though, no? Very unlikely. Biggest part of military training is brainwashing you to always following orders. People that resist brainswashing are quickly discharges as "unfit for duty".

> Biggest part of military training is brainwashing you to always following orders.

The US military has both Republicans and Democrats in it (though probably a larger percentage of the former). If there is any sort of internal conflict, it would likely split along those party lines. Also, the US military does not advocate blindly following orders. The person receiving the orders should only obey lawful orders and should resist and disobey unlawful orders ("I order you to go shoot all those unarmed civilians over there!")

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#197

Post by tialaramex » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #103

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% of suicide in the USA are via firearms, 2.4% are by falling (off bridges or other structures). Focusing on lowering the 2.4% number is not going to be as effective as focusing on the 50% one. https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide It turns out more willpower/commitment is needed to jump off a bridge than pull a trigger. The same with stabbing or suffocating yourself. Yes, someone with lots of willpower/commitment wil…

Yeah, but lowering the 50% one will increase usage of the other methods significantly. The US isn't magically going to have insanely low suicide rates if you make guns illegal. Sad/depressed/broken people are still sad/depressed/broken (nothing has changed on that front). There will be a slight drop in overall suicides and a very large increase in non-firearm suicide attempts (re: Japan). Here's an idea that doesn't…

That isn't how suicide works.

I know the US is just very bad at this, but you can literally look at other countries and learn from their experiences. I know, some of them don't speak the same language, but it turns out Americans are just human like everybody else.

Interventions _work_ without making suicide impossible, because the suicide victims aren't rational people looking to kill themselves, they are crazy and have fixated on a plan that would kill them. When the plan doesn't work they are reset by that and most won't kill themselves.

The most internationally famous example is Town Gas. Britain used to make a dangerous but useful flammable gas called "Town Gas" by processing coal. The gas burned reasonably cleanly and coal was readily available, but the gas was toxic and so you may have heard the phrase "Stick your head in the oven" - the idea isn't that you could somehow cook your own head, but toxic Town Gas will poison you and you'd die. Britain used to see lots of suicides by this method.

And then, not to prevent suicide but for simple economic reasons having discovered huge natural gas reserves in the North Sea, Britain switched to Natural Gas. Things had to be reconfigured, there are still left-over buildings and equipment littering the country decades later, but it just made obvious economic sense to switch. Natural Gas, however, though technically it could suffocate you, isn't poisonous and is very disinterested in remaining even a poorly ventilated kitchen, it just floats off. So people who lay down with their head in the oven after Natural Gas didn't die. They'd lay there, and eventually they'd realise this isn't working - and they would get up and get on with their lives.

This _actually worked_ entirely by accident, the suicide rate dropped significantly. A natural experiment, and to refuse to learn from that is extremely dense.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#198

Post by DoctorOetker » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #108

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

50% of suicide in the USA are via firearms, 2.4% are by falling (off bridges or other structures). Focusing on lowering the 2.4% number is not going to be as effective as focusing on the 50% one. https://www.sprc.org/means-suicide It turns out more willpower/commitment is needed to jump off a bridge than pull a trigger. The same with stabbing or suffocating yourself. Yes, someone with lots of willpower/commitment wil…

Because suicide via firearms is the painless route. If you were going to kill yourself why wouldn't you do it with a gun. You have to be prepared for legislation like this only slightly decrease the number of suicides but drastically increase the suffering of the people that do.

I thought liquid nitrogen was the painless (and cheaper) route

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#199

Post by cameronbrown » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #75

kaonashi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think young men can find young women influencing?

That isn't my point. My point was that young men are less likely to be aware of or watch a show that isn't targeted at them. They can't really be inspired to copy something that they aren't familiar with. Similarly if the show was the cause of the spike and the audience was largely young girls, why wasn't there a statistically significant spike in the suicide rate of girls?

> They can't really be inspired to copy something that they aren't familiar with.

Can't they? Who's to say they weren't more influenced because the protagonist was female? The show still had a significant male viewership rate of 35%. That's not the majority, but it isn't small either.

Re: Release of “13 Reasons Why” Associated with Increase in Youth Suicide Rates

#200

Post by Rapzid » Fri, Aug 30, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

elicash wrote: post #62

riffic wrote: post #42

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_cau...

Did you even bother to read the article? They state this themselves. > The lack of change in homicide rates during the period of interest lends some strength to the idea that changes in suicide rates were influenced by the show and not some other environmental or social factor that occurred during this period. [...] > While compelling, this research had several limitations. For example, the study used a quasi-experim…

It's important to bring up. They sure make a lot of recommendations for "necessary best practices" based on bunk. Most people read articles headlines and maybe just skim some of the rest.

The damage is kinda done now in that a lot of articles are gonna come out saying it could be "associated with 29%.." which to the average person reads as "Watching this causes suicide". Heck, Salt Lake City IDS "...we highly discourage students from watching this series".

The mania has begun and some hand-wavy dismissal of environmental or social factors because they definitely would have increased homicide rates(except 13 Reasons Why of somehow, of course, because reasons!), and some brief, buried nod to correlation != causation doesn't make it all better.