Researchers recently published a study that examined the series’s apparent effect on internet searches about suicide. “13 Reasons Why” generated more than 600,000 news reports. In the 19 days after its release, searches about suicide were about 19 percent higher than expected. As hoped, some searches for things like “suicide hotline,” “suicide prevention” and “teen suicide” went up. But so did searches for “commit suicide,” “how to commit suicide” and “how to kill yourself.” The long-term effects of this are unclear, but are certainly concerning enough to monitor.

Our inability to address the issue of guns exacts a cost. There are about twice as many suicides annually using guns (more than 21,000 in 2014) as there are homicides using guns. Almost none of the guns used in suicides are assault weapons, and yet that seems to be the singular focus of many activists. In about 45 percent of suicides among those age 15 to 24, guns were used.

Those who might counter that people who want to kill themselves would find other ways if we limited their access to guns ignore evidence about suicide. Research shows that most suicides are impulsive. Studies of people who came close to dying from suicide attempts, but lived, show that about one-quarter went from deciding to kill themselves to making the attempt in less than five minutes. Almost three-quarters of them took less than an hour.

Having access to guns can make a big difference, because they are devastatingly efficient. Suicide attempts by gun succeed more than 85 percent of the time; attempts by overdose or poisoning succeed less than 2 percent of the time. Meta-analyses show that access to a firearm increases one’s odds of a successful suicide by more than a factor of three.

While we can debate the relative merits of making it easier or harder to own a gun, it’s clear that guns should be kept out of the hands of children.

Finally, we are allowing teenagers to become more withdrawn from others. The Monitoring the Future study has been looking at the behaviors, attitudes and values of American high school students for decades. I pulled data from their archives for 2007 through 2015, specifically looking at high school seniors. In 2007, only 25 percent of them reported going out on dates one or fewer times a month — three-quarters were more social than that. In 2015, the percentage of people reporting one date or fewer in a month had risen to 36 percent. In 2007, the percentage of people who reported going out for fun and recreation one or fewer times per week was 46 percent. By 2015, that had risen to 59 percent.

In an article in The Atlantic, and in a new book, Jean Twenge argues that smartphones and social media have disconnected teenagers from society. Others fear the internet in general also may be doing the same or increasing the potential for bullying without immediate repercussions. I’m not sure we can lay as much of the blame on technology as they do, but all of these data make a strong argument that teenagers are more isolated and at higher risk than before.

We need to talk about suicide in ways that help, not harm. We need to make sure young people have no access to guns. And we need to make sure they are connected enough to each other, to family, and to the health care system so that those at risk can be recognized and given the care they need. The rising toll shows we should not ignore this problem, or pretend that it’s just too hard.