Newsletter Archives

• You can stop the avalanche of teen suicides due to social media

  Posted on March 3, 2025 at 02:45 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 22.09 • 2025-03-03

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  The world is suffering from an explosion of teenage suicides and self-harm that are directly caused by the depression and suicidal impulses that young people develop through social-media use, according to medical experts.

  I called attention to these ghastly statistics in my July 8, 2024, column. Suicide rates among children as young at 10 have doubled or tripled since smartphones became glued to teenagers’ hands and social media such as Instagram became kids’ primary method of relating to the world.

  Finally, a respected psychologist — a professor of leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business — has published a blueprint to end the bloodshed and bring children back into a healthy relationship with their electronic devices and each other.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (22.09.0, 2025-03-03).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Public Defender Age Restrictions, Age Verification, Child Security, Depression, Newsletters, Self-harm, Smartphones, Social Media, Suicide, Teen Depression

• Social-media apps are killing our kids. Do adults care?

  Posted on July 8, 2024 at 02:44 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Rates of suicide and self-harm among teens and preteens in the US and other countries have doubled, tripled, and even quintupled in the past dozen years. Now we may finally know why.

  An explosive front-page article in The Wall Street Journal on June 21, 2024, revealed that Instagram — with more than 2 billion monthly active users — feeds disturbing videos to viewers who register as minors. The website’s Reels stream, the newspaper said, feeds to teenagers three times as many sex videos as it sends to adults over the age of 30, 1.7 times as much violence, and 4.1 times as much bullying.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.28.0, 2024-07-08).

  Public Defender Bullying, Instagram, Mental Health, Newsletters, Self-harm, Social Media, Suicide