Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why remains a woeful depiction of mental health issues, whatever the suicide stats say

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Australia’s National Youth Mental Health Foundation reported “a growing number of calls and emails directly related to the programme”. According to the Nationwide Children’s Hospital research, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, rates of suicide among young boys aged 10-17 in the US rose by 28.9 per cent a month after the premiere of the show. Support free-thinking journalism and attend Independent events But when we fall into the trap of blindly latching on to statistics based on our desire to make the puzzle pieces of this show’s impact on teenage mental health fit, we risk distracting from those valid concerns. Not because there’s no place on our screens for exploring the complexities surrounding suicide and mental health, but because the show’s approach has entirely failed to do that in the first place.