It’s no secret—though perhaps it hasn’t yet gotten the attention it deserves—that suicide rates have been skyrocketing among young people in the United States. What can be done to reverse this appalling trend? Social, professional, and familial interventions are valuable and should be continued, for in such a crisis an “all of the above” approach is reasonable. But the ultimate solution can only be found in a reacquaintance with the transcendent end of the human person.
Even before the pandemic, from 2007 to 2018, the rate of suicide among people aged 10 to 24 rose nearly 60 percent. The stress and social isolation brought about by COVID-19 and the societal response to it increased the risk of self-harm across the board, but the spike was most pronounced in the youngest age groups.
A recent issue of the alumni magazine from the University of Pennsylvania addressed the problem at that school. From 2013 to 2017, fourteen Penn students took their own lives. Intensifying the alarm, in 2019, the executive director of the university’s counseling service—the main institutional means for attacking the problem—committed suicide. Students have initiated their own groups and programs, many of them led by students who have struggled with their own self-destructive temptations.
Kudos to the Penn community for bringing the problem into the light of day and to students for taking the initiative in seeking solutions. There seems to be widespread recognition among the activists that there is no single, easy answer to this distressing yet perennial human tragedy. Yet they also recognize that we ought to do what we can to minimize the threat. To that end, they correctly identify one of the chief causes of suicidal thoughts: loneliness.
One of the student leaders, drawing on a 2018 survey, calls the current crop of young people “the loneliest generation.” Paradoxically, the loneliest generation grew up with the technological means to communicate with more people more constantly than ever before in history. But “social” media, it turns out, are not as beneficial as they were cracked up to be. The inverse relationship between self-esteem and the use of social media is now widely understood.
Again, though, the problem is not monocausal, and so the solution is not as simple as minimizing or avoiding social media. Social contact with others (physical rather than virtual) does not eliminate the risk. Penn’s victims of suicide were surrounded by fellow students in dormitories, in class, and in social settings. Some of them were far from socially isolated; they were popular and successful. To be a Penn student is itself a mark of success: the Ivy League school admits fewer than 10 percent of its applicants, and Penn graduates on average earn about three times the national media income. Something other than lack of achievement or good prospects is at work. Even seemingly popular and successful people can be pathologically lonely and depressed.
The Penn stories and the experience of others in this area demonstrate that social connection is key. Often it is a personal relationship—sometimes a single instance of reaching out by a friend or acquaintance—that makes the difference between life and death. This is why involvement in social institutions such as clubs, athletics, and churches, is an important means of preventing the severe isolation that provides fertile ground for suicidal thoughts.
But there is something else. Even healthy families and social organizations can be inadequate in the maintenance of a healthy view of self. Parents and siblings; ministers, rabbis, and imams; teachers, friends, and classmates can all let you down. There is one, however, who will not. The psalmist sings, “To God, the Lord, belongs escape from death” (68:20). The truth of the human person is that we are created in God’s image, that he loves us unconditionally, and that we are destined for eternal life with him.
Churches are therefore crucial not merely as social institutions but even more as preservers and conveyors of the truth about God and man. It is no coincidence that a decline in religious belief and practice—especially among youth—has occurred in correlation with a rise in suicide—especially among youth. Without a transcendent source of faith, hope, and love, we are left with the material world as the provider of those inherent and essential human ideals. The good that the world supplies may seem like enough to sustain us, but it is in fact insufficient, and this insufficiency can become unbearable in times of intense challenge.
Only the indestructible security of divine faith is a sure safeguard against the temptation to see ourselves as less than we are. “Come, let us return to the Lord” (Hos 6:1), “and you will find rest for your souls” (Mt 11:29), for “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10).
