According to data obtained from the Ministry of Health and Welfare by Rep. Lee Joo-young of the Reform Party, a member of the National Assembly's Education Committee, on the 30th, 199 minors died by suicide in the first half of this year, 10 more than in the same period last year. On an annual basis, too, suicides among minors have steadily increased. The figure stood at 273 in 2016, rose to 338 in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, and surged to 399 last year. The suicide rate — deaths per 100,000 people — among minors also rose from 8.0 in 2024 to 8.6 last year.
The suicide attempt rate is also high, with roughly three out of every 100 teenagers having attempted suicide. According to the National Data Office, the suicide attempt rate among middle and high school students fell to 2.0% in 2020, the lowest in a decade, but climbed to 3.2% in 2023 when the COVID-19 endemic was declared, and stood at 2.7% last year. In addition, 25.7% of adolescents reported experiencing depression and 41.3% reported feeling stress as of last year, pointing to broad warning signs for teenagers' mental health.
Also notable is that the number of male minors who died by suicide in the first half of this year fell by 11 from the same period two years earlier to 97, while the number of female deaths rose by seven over the same period to 102. According to an analysis by The Economist, the average suicide rate among girls aged 10 to 19 across 17 countries including the U.S. and the U.K. rose from 3.0 in 2003 to 3.5 in 2020, while the rate for boys in the same age group was unchanged over the period — evidence of a global rise in teenage female suicide. Experts attribute this to the tendency of adolescent girls to be more affected by SNS content than boys.
Academics say the spread of a culture of comparison among acquaintances driven by greater SNS use, along with the lack of opportunities to properly interact with peers because of remote classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, has contributed to the rising suicide rate. Online, adolescents can easily encounter content that harms their mental health, including appearance comparisons, violent and sexually suggestive material, and posts related to self-harm, while cases of cyberbullying among peers who never meet in person are also frequently observed.
Hong Hyun-joo, a professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital, advised: "We need to consider ways to reduce negative online communication among teenagers," adding, "Some degree of regulation also appears necessary for content that romanticizes suicide." She continued: "Students need to experience healthy interpersonal relationships at school, and families must strengthen communication between parents and children to address the problem of 'isolation,' one of the main causes of suicide. Suicide prevention education at schools should also take a more active form based on role-playing rather than one-way video viewing."
Overseas, governments have taken strong measures such as blocking adolescent accounts, judging that SNS harms youth mental health. Australia in December last year became the first country in the world to ban SNS accounts for those under 16, and the U.K., the European Union, and Canada are preparing legislation centered on restricting adolescent SNS use. In June, the Korean government announced a "pan-government plan for preventing suicide among teenagers," aiming to lower the adolescent suicide rate to 6.5 by 2030 and 4.2 by 2035, but it is not considering measures such as a blanket SNS ban. A government official said: "There were internal disagreements, as some students view SNS as a channel for communication, and blocking even that could deepen feelings of isolation for some adolescents. For that reason, we prepared measures such as running digital detox healing camps and 24-hour monitoring of information that induces self-harm and suicide."
Rep. Lee said: "We must take seriously the fact that suicides among teenagers are rising even as the total number of suicides declines or stagnates. Teenagers in particular are not accustomed to expressing their difficulties or asking for help on their own, so careful observation by those around them and early intervention are important." She added: "The government must closely examine the causes of rising teenage suicide and, rather than stopping at after-the-fact responses, build an effective prevention system that detects warning signs early and quickly connects them to professional counseling and treatment."
