The Effects of 13 Reasons Why Series on Teenagers´ Behavior

Teenagers´ behavior can be influenced by an overwhelming amount of aspects, not only family and friends but also media, which recently has been suffering incredible changes due to the time teenagers spend in this area that now, is more than just entertainment. Media can influence teenagers in aspects such as identity, lifestyle, body image, worldwide issues and more.

Nowadays, one of the most influential tools of media in teenagers are tv shows and movies because they portray a lot of what is going on in their lives. That is why media is more than just entertainment, it now portrays a lot of social issues teenagers go through, delivering messages to them, it has such a huge influence that teenagers can adapt some ideas and behaviors from the shows they watch. Netflix, is one of the biggest and most famous platforms to spread series of this nature. When series show scenes with sensible topics, they want to open up conversations around viewers and lead them to ponder. However, the impact it has in viewers can create controversies, which is the case of Netflix´s 13 Reasons Why.

13 Reasons Why (3 seasons, released in March 2017) is a fictional drama series based on Jay Asher´s book, that shows a wide range of tough real-life issues experienced by teens; portraying very graphically issues like suicide, sexual assault, bullying, gun violence, drug use and depression. The series goes around Clay Jensen and the death by suicide of his friend, Hanna Baker, after experiencing painful events around high school, leaving behind only 13 tapes to explain the reasons and people that contributed to make this decision, showing the big impact those events had in her mental health and sense of self. Being teenagers and young adults its audience target, the series´ main purpose is to raise awareness on its viewers about those issues, to open up productive conversations and to help people realize about situations teenagers can be exposed to, identify patterns and prevent multiple dangerous situations. The controversy about this series is beyond how they represented those topics, the scenes and the language; it is also about how it depicts real high schools in the United States opening up concern in experts; that according to Northwestern University 62% of teenagers agreed that the depiction of high school was authentic and 80% said that people their age act and deal with issues just as it is portrayed in the show.

This essay will examine how teenagers from The United States reacted to this series and the impact it had in their lives, due to the popular belief that teenagers should not watch this show because it will only harm them. To examine the impact, this essay is focused on 3 topics: teen suicide, teenagers´ mind/behavior and communication between teenagers and their relatives. The explicit scenes inside the show as well as quotes/phrases around those scenes are only getting the controversy bigger about the impact in teenagers and their behavior at school, with their parents and even with their selves.

Suicide is a major health concern in The United States especially for young people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2017, year of the release of 13 Reasons Why, suicide was the second leading cause of death for individuals between 10 and 24 years. Thus, a lot of mental health experts such as those inside the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry were concerned about this increase in suicide as a leading cause of death; considering media, the language and portrayal of a suicide attempt in the show “13 Reasons Why” as an influential point. Given that consideration, it is important to highlight how that suicide scene was developed, the shocking use of language, its purpose and teenagers´ opinion about 13 Reasons Why suicide scene.

The biggest concern around experts is the suicide scene that lasts nearly 3 minutes, it starts with Hanna staring at her reflection in the mirror evaluating her life before she sits in her bathtub with tears and a razor blade to pierce her left wrist up to her elbow focusing only in Hanna shrieking in pain with that long path of blood in her arms, breathless with blood all around. Shortly afterwards, Hanna´s mom finds out her daughter´s lifeless body in the bathtub with nothing left to do, showing the pain of Hanna's parents and friends all around the show. Of course, an scene of this nature could wake up a lot of feelings in vulnerable teenagers and parents that have a child struggling with this kind of situation, that is why that choice of airing such an explicit scene opened up a lot of discussions between mental health experts, questioning the efficiency of the series with what they declared was its purpose. Hence, people that are part of the making of 13 Reasons Why spoke out and showed some of the reasons why they decided to film that scene.

The creator, Brian Yorkey (2019) states that the creative intent in portraying the ugly, painful reality of suicide in such graphic detail in season one was to tell the truth about the horror of such an act and make sure no one would ever wish to emulate it. That perfectly fits with a particular situation lived by Nic Sheff, writer of the series that, inside Vanity Fair wrote about his fight to get that suicide portrayal in the show relying on his own story; the precise moment when he was committing suicide and how a story that a woman told him some time ago about her suicide saved his life by showing him how suicide really is: awful.

Language was another concern, because it could make easier for teens to identify with the main character encouraging copycat suicide. Phrases like: “when you feel you´ve nothing left. And no one. Like you are drowning and no one will throw you a line”. “I wanted a purpose … a reason for being in this planet”. “I started thinking how everyone´s lives would be better without me.” This phrases could have a huge impact in teenagers that feel the same way as Hanna, showing that there is only one way and everything is full of blame as another Hanna´s phrase: “I´m about to tell you how my life ended, and if you’re listening to this tape, you are one of the reasons why”. When really everything can be done in a totally different way; lack of discussion of mental health is seen. Additionally, phrases that showed Clay´s pain “memories are sometimes reliefs. And sometimes they´re torture”, portraying the effects suicide has in loved ones

Certainly, every person is different and the reaction they have with that scene will be different, especially for teenagers that went through these situations being sensible to them or in the contrary, teens that might be better prepared to face situations like this. That is why suicide contagion in teenagers, a well-known phenomenon from the exposure to suicidal behaviors, was a major concern not only for experts but also for survivors that knew about the show; a Teen Vogue publication showed what they thought about that scene, most of them agreed that they were showing a “step by step guide” for suicide, romanticizing it and evading mental health issues Hanna might have gone through.

By contrast, it should be different for teenagers that are not struggling, reading through their opinions on another survey of Teen Vogue, for them it was not shocking but for others that do not have prior knowledge could misunderstand the message of the show due to the lack of discussion about mental illness and its overcoming, also because it shows suicide as a revenge. This brings up important key findings, as it is known Hanna left tapes for those that she found influenced her choice of committing suicide by psychological and physical aggression; like sexual assault, cruelty, bullying and exposure of herself; it is reasonable to think that her purpose with these tapes was to make them feel guilty. There is where the lack of discussion about mental health shows up, for a person that understand well the meaning of mental health can identify patterns and differentiate from what truly is a good decision and what is not. By avoiding or not even making clear what the main character is going through, those that are not familiarized with this could feel that that kind of behavior is okay, that suicide is the only solution and as major beliefs the show can become a step by step suicide guide.

Nevertheless, statistics should show the truth: Research by the JAACAP named “Association between the Release of Netflix´s 13 Reasons Why and Suicide Rates in the United States: An interrupted Time Series Analysis” hypothesized that the release of this series would have a sustained impact on suicide rates in youth because of the poor suicide preventions, basing their research on CDC´s Web-based to get data of deaths by suicide in teens and analyzing suicide rates one month before and after the release of the show. They found approximately 195 additional suicide deaths with the release of the series for teenagers up to 17 but without conclusively demonstrating any association with the series. Being suicide rates for boys the one that increased in contrast to female rates with a difference not statistically significant.

Suicide contagion is an important aspect that should be taken into account, it affects only those who strongly identify with the person who committed suicide, being the language a great mean for that, thus a female youth suicide rate should have been seen, which did not show up in the results of the research mentioned before. This being backed up with a research article published on January 2020 by Daniel Romer named “Reanalysis of the Bridge et al. study of suicide following release of 13 Reasons Why”, that additionally shows that the increase in teen boys suicide rates was a general increase that had started earlier in 2008 so even if somehow it could have affected those that are not the target of suicide contagion, like boys, it did not impact on them, it was just a general rate at increase.

Neither portrayal nor language impacted in the increasing of suicide rates for teenagers in The United States. Instead, 13 Reasons Why had a positive effect for non-struggling teenagers because of the use of language that is helpful to identify patterns and prevent suicide. As well as for those that are struggling due to the great portrayal of bad outcomes suicide comes with, not only with them but also with their loved ones. This being related to Papageno Effect that reduces copycat suicide by some specific kind of portrayals, those that do not count with highlights of sensationalists characteristics but focus on social messages as well as those that provide its viewers professional sources with help, like 13 Reasons Why does, with its own website, making sure it is well-known in every episode of the show.

Since teenagers have way more access to media than it was before, the way tv shows and programs are seen has changed, it is no longer all the family watching one program, it is now an individualized viewing; making harder to establish important conversations because of the topics inside the program adolescents watch these days. Moreover teenagers´ appreciation for some topics may need some guidance from relatives and sometimes counselors given that teenagers’ brain is still developing, meaning that the part of their brains that are responsible for abilities such as solving problems and controlling impulses, are still developing. At the same time, teenagers need to share what they are feeling with someone like them.

Been that said, 13 Reasons Why counts with a lot of important and at the same time tough topics greatly related with teenage life that are important to discuss: suicide, depression, sexual assault, drug use and bullying. Having a show of this nature at easy access with an accurate depiction of high school life and use of language rises up the possibility to reinforce important conversations for teenagers with people they trust. This can change according to the state of mind of the adolescent and impact in a different way if the teen is struggling or not.