Did "sexting" really kill?

MSNBC recently covered the suicide of 18-year-old Jesse Logan of Ohio. The article trumpets the fact that the teen girl was caught up in an embarrassing "sexting" scandal at school, which was likely one of many compounding factors in her suicide. But other key details -- like, that just hours before killing herself, she attended the funeral of a friend who had committed suicide -- are intentionally buried. It's just another example of accuracy shamefully sacrificed for the latest scaremongering narrative about kids and sex. I recently wrote about it for Broadsheet and got some great feedback from readers who have clinical experience working with teens:

Thank you Tracy

I am a psychologist and work with many teens. People are so naive about teen suicide, I am grateful to see someone pointing out the importance of looking at the many complex variables that lead to such drastic behavior. The media usually drastically oversimplifies it.

-- sjvaughn

Re: teen suicide

Tracy, thank you so much for doing the research you did for this piece. I have been involved with suicide prevention efforts for almost 16 years now and it is appalling how often people just make assumptions about this issue.

There were a lot of factors that contributed to this person's suicide. One of the items you pointed out that contributed to this suicide was exposure to suicidal behavior. People who are exposed to suicide, such as this person was, are 60-80% more likely to attempt or complete suicide. This is so frequently ignored as a contributing factor. ...

-- Nevadan