Mental health

Two-thirds of the news stories analyzed last year debunked the holiday-suicide myth, the false claim that suicides increase over the holidays, according to new research from the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Although some researchers have attributed the rise in adolescent suicide to social media and smart phone use, researcher Dan Romer says economic and parental pressures are as likely to blame.

A recent study estimated that an additional 195 suicide deaths among young people occurred after the release of the TV series “13 Reasons Why.” A commentary co-authored by APPC's Dan Romer asks how to interpret that number and whether it obscures a complex set of media effects.

A new study from APPC and CHOP suggests that relatively slower growth of working memory is linked with teen driving crashes.

A study of adults based on a two-wave survey finds an association between seeing images of self-harm on Instagram and subsequent self-harm. Most who say they've seen the images report being disturbed by them.

Given the series’ popularity and its potentially harmful effects, researchers at APPC and three other institutions conducted a study to more fully understand the effects of the show through a survey of U.S. young adults, ages 18 to 29, before and after the May 2018 release of its second season.

A new policy review of research on teen risk-taking finds that despite stereotypes to the contrary, the evidence does not support the notion of the out-of-control teenage brain.