Suicide

While the nation was in the grips of the Covid-19 pandemic during last year’s holiday season, not many in the media were focused on possible links between the holidays and suicide trends.

The holiday season usually has the lowest suicide rates, but news accounts persist in supporting the holiday-suicide myth. While the COVID-19 pandemic has increased risk factors associated with suicide, media should be careful not to make unfounded claims about suicide trends.

APPC stands by its reanalysis showing no clear effect on adolescent suicide from the first season of the Netflix series "13 Reasons Why."

Contrary to a 2019 study, a data reanalysis found no evidence of an increase in adolescent suicide rates after the release of Netflix's "13 Reasons Why."

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.