One in four teenage suicides involves the internet, official inquiry finds
The internet played a role in a quarter of teenage suicides, an official inquiry has revealed – as its author accused social media firms of having shown “little concern” to stop self-harm online.
Professor Louis Appleby, who heads the government’s advisory group on suicide, said the research into 595 suicides by young people aged under 20 showed 128 had used the internet in a way that was suicide-related.
This included searching for suicide methods, suffering online bullying or putting suicidal posts on social media, according to the inquiry which used clinical information to investigate reasons for the suicides between 2014 and 1016.
Growing up near green spaces is linked to better mental health
Children who grow up in greener surroundings have a greatly reduced risk of developing mental illnesses later in life, research suggests.
A study that tracked almost a million people found that those who were raised among the lowest levels of green space were as much as 55 per cent more likely to develop disorders such as substance abuse, stress-related illnesses and schizophrenia.
A leafy childhood environment was as strongly linked to a person’s mental health as their family history of mental illness and only slightly less than their parents’ socio-economic status.