Comment by llm_nerd

Teen suicide rates have been falling in Europe and most of the world. North America has edged back up to 1990 levels, and it's largely alone in that trend.

Europe and the rest of the world has social media as well. And of course 1990 didn't have social media.

There are a lot of reasons teens can feel hopeless, and I think the hyper-partisan political atmosphere / circus, coupled with the existential crisis and very real career crisis caused by AI, at least in the common understanding, the rapid heating of the Earth, etc. I would attribute all of those as dramatically more likely to lead a child to seek an out more than social media, even if the latter is much easier to blame.