Are Smartphones Making Teens Commit Suicide?

Many studies were conducted from 2012 through 2018, and it was observed that teen suicide was on the edge these years. All of a sudden, it was seen that kids are suffering from anxiety, depression, and stress, and more than often, they end up committing suicide. It was found that the suicides came from all the regions and backgrounds – all races, less and more privileged, all ethnicities, and almost everywhere. It was also found that the kids who were born after 1995 are more likely to experience mental health issues and choosing suicide as their escape.

It came as a surprise for the experts and the parents that why are teens choosing this path when they should be living a normal and healthy life. Why are they depressed and sad? Why are they not living happily? What possible issues can they have that led them to this? After screening through a lot of things, it was found that the period in which kids were committing suicide was the period smartphone became common. People born before 1995 were not that much acquitted with the smartphone in their teens but these teens have easy access to the internet and smartphone.

This study might have happened a few years back, but still, we can see, the use of smartphones is increasing day by day and now, every teen has a smartphone. Those who don’t have phones are feeling that they are left behind and finding ways to fit in the era of technology. Every kid wants a smartphone now, to fit in with their peers, to stay updated, and to make sure they look cool. But then why are smartphones becoming the reason for suicides?

How Can the Excessive Use of Smartphones Lead to Suicide?

Well, studies tell us that there are several ways that a smartphone can lead to suicide among teens. It is especially about the teens because they are emotional and vulnerable at this stage of life and without proper guidance and assistance, there is so much less that they can do about the things they feel over small things. The excessive use of smartphones can lead to depression, anxiety, stress, and a lot of other mental health issues that can lead to suicide.

Smartphone means access to chat and calls any time of the day. Furthermore, if there is an internet connection available, this is very common these days, the chances of being caught up in the drama are pretty much huge. Bullying, predation, fake relationships, lack of proper sleep, fantasies, and other things can turn a happy kid into a sad one. Here are some of the ways a smartphone can turn your kid into a sad person who wants to kill himself:

• With the advent of the smartphone, it has become very easy to talk to your loved ones any time of the day. For teens, it means night as well. So, usually, teens sacrifice their sleep to chat with their friends, talk to the people they are in a relationship with, etc. If this lack of sleep continues, it can induce a lot of mental health issues thus leading the kids to take the wrong sort of decisions.
• Bullying became very much common after the common use of a smartphone. It is very easy to do name-calling or harass someone with inappropriate stuff through the use of a smartphone. Moreover, when the use of the internet and social media became common, it became easier to humiliate someone in front of the public through these social media platforms. Such things can make teens so much embarrassed that they choose to take their lives. Such things have happened with many teens and it is one of the main causes of suicide among them.
• When they join social media platforms, teens are enthusiastic about making new friends and soon they are found in the relationships that they feel they can’t live without. Little do they know that these fake relationships can hurt them so much at the end when things don’t come out as they expected. There are a lot of things that can hurt when a teen came out of fake online relationships. There are several cases where teens have committed suicide because of the heartbreak they faced on social media.

With such issues with the smartphone, it was obvious that it can be the reason for the kids to feel down and take wrong steps like suicide.

Note for Parents

In scenarios like this, parents often feel helpless after they get to know that their kids had been suffering and they didn’t know. However, if they feel like they should do something about this, there are a few things that can be done to make sure kids are not moving towards such disastrous decisions. Here are a few tips for the parents:

• Guide them well when you hand them their first smartphone. It is the time you tell them that they need to understand that social media life is fantasy-based and for fun only, and that they should focus on what they have in reality. The more you guide them about the dangers associated with the smartphone, the better are the chance of them being smart with their choices. Take a look at these positive parenting tips.
• Monitoring them might not have come to your mind before, but now things have changed and it is time that parents need to understand that if they want to keep their kids safe, they need to know what they are up to. For that, you need the best monitoring and tracking app. Mobistealth is the best monitoring app that can help you in knowing what wrong things your kids are doing on social media and when are they in danger. You will know about the times when you should intervene and do something about it to protect them.

Committing suicide because of smartphones and social media is becoming common these days and there should be something done about it. Parents, teachers, and mental health experts need to be very alert about the activities of kids these days.