It's not so much teenage credulity, or coddling parents. Teen suicide is the easily quantifiable tip of the iceberg when it comes to mental health outcomes. Conspicuously it started trended up after 2008, around the nascence of Facebook and smartphones:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

> Following a downward trend until 2007, suicide rates significantly increased 8.2% annually from 2008 to 2022, corresponding to a significant increase in the overall rates between 2001 to 2007 and 2008 to 2022 (3.34 to 5.71 per 1 million; IRR, 1.71)

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heavyset_go 2 days ago | parent [-]

That's also when the Great Recession happened, giving young people bleak outlooks for their future, outlooks which never really recovered. Nothing was fixed, and things have only gotten worse since then.

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aeonfox 2 days ago | parent [-]

The data doesn't bear that out. I remember the GFC well because my whole industry imploded during it. It certainly did recover by every measure.

US GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

US unemployment: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une...

S&P 500: https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat...

US inflation rate: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infl...

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heavyset_go 2 days ago | parent [-]

> US GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDP

GDP doesn't matter much when your life will be worse than your parents'.

> US unemployment: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une...

Dead end jobs with little to no benefits, no pensions, time off, low pay and few hours count as "employment".

Their parents and grandparents had pensions and could work at one employer for the entirety of their careers with growth opportunities, and could afford homes and healthcare while doing so.

That was a big part of the shift in 2008.

> S&P 500: https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-dat...

Doesn't matter to a kid without significant ownership of financial assets.

> US inflation rate: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/current-infl...

Post the wages vs productivity graph for the last 20 years, it's more applicable to concerns of students and young adults.

	▲	aeonfox a day ago \| parent [-]
		> That was a big part of the shift in 2008. Your hypothesis might be right, but I've provided data, and you're providing opinions. I'm fine with being wrong in my claim, but I didn't earn the downvote when no-one seems to have a clearer hypothesis with better evidence. First, show me that this shift is peculiar to 2008. And then show me that this is what teenagers are killing themselves over.