It seems likely to me social media would play a role in this, but I'm going to push back a little because I'm also aware that social media has basically become the catch all when trying to explain any and complex social problem in the modern era.
I think we should remember that social media is basically used across the world today, but the rise in teen suicide seems to be particularly pronounced in the West – and rates of depression even more so.
I’m personally concerned with the number teens on depression medication today and how readily depression is diagnosed. I grew up before social media but I was a pretty depressed teen. I hung around with other fairly depressed teen. The depressed angsty teen thing has existed for a long time. It does seem to just be part of growing up for many. However when I was younger I didn’t know anyone on anti-depressants. If I grew up today it’s likely my whole friendship group would have been on them, including myself. And given this change in the rate of anti-depressant use, I’m fairly concerned we don’t yet fully understand how these medications affect younger people and might be contributing to suicide rates.
This quite controversial because people feel like I’m attacking medication many find useful, but I’ve personally seen myself how anti-depressants can make people feel more at ease with self harm and suicide. These medications don’t seem to necessarily make people happier, but more comfortable, and they seem to be good at numbing what used be a painful emotional experience allowing people to get on with their lives easier. Not always of course, and it depends on the medication, but this does seem to be true in a lot of cases.
I became concerned about this when kid in my family took anti-depressants at the age of 9 and shortly after started to self-harm and become increasingly violent. He was definitely less sad, but he was far more comfortable with hurting people and himself. When I spoke to him about what he was doing he seemed to struggle to even understand how much he was hurting people, and this was hard to understand given how sweet and caring he used to be.
I might be wrong, but I wish we were more focused on understanding whether the over diagnosis and medicalisation of depression in young people is fuelling suicide rates and mental illness, but I’m aware this is a very unpopular view since some people feel I’m attacking depressed people who feel the medication is helping. I’m not, but I do think we need to do more research to understand how these drugs can affect young people with developing brains and emotions. It seems to me it’s probably reasonable to assume artificially altering the brain chemistry of children with medication would have some consequences on their mental stability, and there is clinical evidence that some anti-depressants are linked to increased suicide rates and other metal illnesses, but I’m still not sure we have good long-term studies about how giving children these medications to children alters their development over time and might make them more likely to commit suicide in their early adulthood or late teenage years.
Hope this comment is received in good faith.