New figures quantify teenagers’ self harm. Once again, we’re hearing social media is to blame.

See if you can spot another reason why teens might be more depressed.

Figure 1. Hospital emergency cases and deaths involving parent-aged grownups’ (age 30-59), along with teens age 10-14, for self-inflicted harm, suicide, and overdose.

Sources: CDC, Emergency Room (ER) data, mortality data, 2025.

Figure 1 shows just-released Centers for Disease Control figures for self-inflicted deaths and hospital emergency injuries and overdoses involving 10-14 year-olds compared to grownups’ of ages to be their parents (30-59).

Of teenagers’ ER cases, 10-14-year-old girls’ self-harm in particular has risen, from 12,218 in 2001 to 15,598 (2010) and a peak of 61,594 (2021), before falling to 60,596 (2023).

What could have caused one-half of 1% more of the nation’s 10 million girls age 10-14 to harm themselves over the last 23 years? Once again, we’re hearing that social media must be to blame. After all, there was very little social media use in 2001, and a lot in 2023; ergo, everything bad that happened among young people, especially girls, after 2001 must be caused by social media (I call this the Haidt/Twenge/Atlantic hypothesis).

Three big reasons social media isn’t the culprit

But there are big problems with that claim. One is that both the 2021 and 2023 major CDC surveys show girls under age 15 who use social media a lot (multiple times daily) actually are LESS likely to harm themselves (3.7% in 2023) compared to girls who rarely use social media (less than daily, 4.3%).

More big problems with blaming social media: there are much better explanations that actually have scientific grounding.

CDC figures show Gen Z has grown up amid parents, parents’ partners, relatives, and other nearby adults who suffer soaring rates and staggeringly high levels of the three most common real-life casualties of depression and addiction – self-harm, suicide, and overdose. Gen Z’s entire growing up from 2001 through 2023 has accompanied over 23 million grownups age 30-59 hospitalized for or dying from these afflictions.

Of course, some of those troubled adults would represent repeat cases, and others might not have any connections to young people. So, how many teens are affected by afflicted grownups?

Millions. The CDC’s 2023 survey found that among under-15 girls, 49% reported histories of parents/guardians suffering drug/alcohol abuse and/or “severe” mental health and suicidality problems (31% drug/alcohol; 39% mental; 22% both).

Do widespread, skyrocketing grownup troubles affect teens?

Yes, they do. Massively.

The CDC survey showed younger girls with addicted parents were 4.6 times more likely, those with mentally troubled and suicidal parents were 6.4 times more likely, and those with parents with both problems were 7.3 times more likely to self-harm compared to girls from non-addicted, non-troubled families.

One other weird issue: do we understand girls’ “self harm”?

The latest, 2023 CDC tabulations show the total treatments in ERs for self-inflicted injuries (both self harm and overdose) and deaths from these causes for 4 similar-sized ages:

· 90,784 girls age 10-14; 285 died.

· 23,264 boys age 10-14; 363 died.

· 95,881 women age 35-39 (the average age of their mothers); 5,959 died.

· 167,992 men age 35-39 (the average age of their fathers); 15,962 died.

A big difference stands out: the number of deaths per 1,000 hospitalizations from self-inflicted causes:

· Girls age 10-14: 3

· Boys age 10-14: 16

· Women age 35-39: 62

· Men age 35-39: 95

The ratio of self-inflicted deaths to hospital ER cases is 20 times higher for women age 35-39, and 30 times higher for men age 35-39, than for girls age 10-14, with boys in between.

What is going on here?

One could argue either that a novice drug user like a middle-schooler is more in danger of overdose because of dosage ignorance and bodies that have not built up tolerance; or, conversely, that an experienced 30-age drug user is in more danger due to physical debilitation. However, we would not expect a middle-school girl to be 20 to 30 times more resilient.

My conclusion is that we don’t understand what girls mean by depression and self-harm. One plausible explanation is that unlike older teens – senior high girls who increasingly spend time away from families, and college undergrads – middle-school girls remain trapped at home with increasingly troubled family adults.

A coping strategy for girls in more extreme situations appears to be using “suicide attempts” and self-harm to get attention – not in a quest to suffer or die, but to secure notice from oblivious adults like today’s authorities.

Experts see these same patterns I do. They choose to ignore them, even as they loudly deplore girls’ “mental health crisis.” Unfortunately, girls don’t enjoy authorities’, politicians’, professionals’, and media commentators’ luxury to ignore realities.

Blaming girls’ use of social media for depression and self-harm and demanding that younger girls be forced offline is unwarranted and dangerous. There is no science behind it, only unconscionable indifference among established interests.