Over the past decade, the US’s suicide rate has surged, particularly among the middle aged: it’s up almost 30% for those between 35-64. Why? Many have pointed to the economic downturn, but others have also sought to pin the rise on cultural factors, citing the “retreat from community” and the decline of institutions such as religion and marriage. While these explanations sound plausible, the figures don’t really back up either of them. There’s no correlation between states’ suicide rates and their economic performance. Struggling states such as Michigan and Indiana, for instance, have average suicide rates, while booming North Dakota is well above the norm. As for the idea that traditional institutions reduce suicide, if that were so, you’d expect the suicide rate to be lower in the religious South or in the inland West, where marriage is most common. Yet the suicide rate is more than three times higher in states such as Montana and Alaska than in Washington DC or New York. Such disparities between states, like the across-the-board increase in suicide, defy easy explanation. Still, we can take comfort from the fact that suicide rates are still “lower today, even for the middle aged, than they were in 1960 and 1970 – that is, back in the good old days”. (Nate Cohn, New Republic)

Could it that modern life often seems so pointless? Poor education, no interests, and 5 hours of TV a day? Is it so surprising?