Social Media Is Erasing the Gender Gap in Youth Suicide, and Young Girls Are Paying the Price

A Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight

For decades, suicide was considered a predominantly male crisis. That assumption is now being shattered by hard data. Between 2007 and 2024, the suicide rate for U.S. girls aged 10 to 14 more than quadrupled, climbing from 0.51 to 2.28 per 100,000, according to federal data analyzed in a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics. Let that sink in: girls as young as 10 years old, dying by suicide at four times the rate they were less than two decades ago.

Suicide was the second leading cause of death among 10- to 14-year-olds from 2018 to 2024, according to the study. Boys had double the suicide death rate of girls in this age group in 2017 — but by 2024, the rate for boys was only 4% higher. That near-total erasure of the gender gap is not a sign of progress for boys. It happened because suicide death rates for boys decreased 35% from 2018 to 2024, while rates for girls grew 13%. Girls aren't catching up to boys in a good way — they're being left behind in a very dangerous one.

Social Media at the Center of the Storm

Dr. Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University and the study's author, points squarely at smartphones and social platforms as a driving force. "From roughly 2010 to 2019, I think it's pretty clear that social media and smartphones were behind a lot of that increase in suicides, especially for girls," Twenge told the New York Post. She added that "social media use is more strongly linked to depression and other mental health issues among girls than it is among boys."

The reason, Twenge argues, comes down to how girls and boys experience online comparison differently. Male social comparisons often center on achievable actions like working out or making money, whereas female comparisons lean heavily toward physical appearance. Unlike previous generations where peer standing was qualitative, today's preadolescents navigate an ecosystem driven by quantified metrics — popularity reduced to follower counts and reaction tallies. Meta's own internal research found that girls experience a "grief spiral" from constant exposure to "perfect" bodies and lifestyles on social media.

Teens began spending "a lot more time online and a lot less time with friends in person, and a lot less time sleeping," said Twenge, who also served as an expert witness for the prosecution in a landmark federal trial against Meta in August. The COVID-19 pandemic only accelerated these patterns, pushing children further into screens and further from the in-person connections that protect mental health.

Who Is Most at Risk

Data from the JAMA Pediatrics evaluation indicates that the narrowing suicide gap appeared across Black, Hispanic, and White children, with the suicide rate for Black girls slightly exceeding that of Black boys by the end of the study period. Twenge also noted that other research found Black and Latina girls have the highest rates of social media use, which could be contributing to the trend. This suggests the crisis is not isolated to any one community — it is systemic.

Researchers suggest focusing on risk factors more prevalent among girls in middle school, including relational bullying, social comparison, excessive social media use, and self-harm behaviors. The report's results also suggest that suicide prevention programs for younger kids should equally consider the evolving risk factors affecting both boys and girls — a significant shift from how those programs have historically been designed.

What Needs to Change

Twenge has called for enforcing existing age limits to keep children aged 12 and under completely off social media platforms. She also suggested that the United States could emulate Australia by requiring users to be 16 or older to maintain an account, or by enforcing rigorous age verification protocols. Additional proposals include automatically blocking minor accounts between midnight and 6 a.m. to combat late-night phone usage and mitigate sleep deprivation, a known risk factor for depression and self-harm.

Twenge noted that "the existing age restriction of 13 was not settled on for any developmental reason — it was a compromise made with the tech companies in 1998." Nearly 30 years later, that outdated compromise is colliding with an entirely different technological landscape — one that fits in a child's pocket and never turns off. The data is no longer ambiguous. The question now is whether policymakers, parents, and tech companies will treat it with the urgency it demands.

--- *If you or someone you know is struggling, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting **988**.*