Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

A new study that draws on 122 years of mortality rates in the U.S. is offering a window into suicide trends.

Rather than focusing on just individual or psychological trades like depression

and substance abuse, researchers in this study sought to understand the role that societal factors

play in driving trends. Among other things, the results point to the role that the church can play

in offering hope. The data points to a number of significant shifts. Suicide rates are

higher and start younger each and every decade. Death by suicide among women is skyrocketing.

Rural suicides now exceed those in metropolitan areas, and suicide rates have peaked during periods

of major social upheaval, like the Industrial

Revolution and the Great Depression, and even surprisingly, the advancement of the women's

rights movement. This should put us on alert in the coming age of AI. According to these researchers,

and I quote, suicide appears to be powerfully shaped by what's happening in society, economically, socially, and culturally.

Now, among the factors that are most apparent, especially for young people, are technology and family structures.

The generation that is most digitally connected than any other before it also is the loneliest in all of recorded history. A joint study that

was released a year ago also revealed this connection between addictive screen use among young people

like gaming and compulsive social media checking and suicide risk. Another study show correlation

between youth loneliness and shrinking family sizes, including

single-parent homes, because the study suggested, and I quote, children are less likely to have

automatic peer interaction or large support networks at home. And this increased screen use,

combined with decreased human connection, can also help explain that rise in suicide

in rural areas. What the study does not address, really, are the vast ideological shifts that

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