"...the second-leading killer for those ages 15-34."
I would have never guessed that.
Now I can understand why some are trying to use social media to detect who might be expressing feeling that are common with depression and suicidal thoughts.
Well really, what did you expect the second leading killer to be? They are literally in the prime of their lives. In general, they are as physically healthy as they will ever be. The leading 'killer' is the 'unintentional injury' category. Take a look at these charts (Canada and USA both included for comparison).
It is all over the world. A large number of men are commuting suicide, mostly students and then married men. Yet if you look through pop media all you will see is how many women are 'attempting' suicide... :/
One large factor is the prevailing gender discrimination against males in medical care. Those men who goes against gender roles and actually do seek help against mental health problems are often meet with disbelieve, and do not get the same treatment and support as women. Doctors are found to diagnose depression in women more compared with men, even when two patients have similar scores on standardized measures of depression or present with identical symptoms.
That reported suicide attempts and thoughts are much more common among females than male seem to have quite obvious reasons. Most men do not report it, and from those who still do it, many gets ignored and is thus not recorded into the statistics.
While I agree with most of what you say, I believe we should be more careful claiming there are "obvious reasons" for something without scientific evidence. What you are saying, which might be correct (and I kind of agree with) is not scientifically proved (that I know of), there might really be a gender imbalance for suicidal tendencies but having "obvious reasons" is not enough, at least for me, to claim it as a fact. I find it strange and I'd prefer more work to be done on this matters.
The demographic of "people dying by suicide variously defined" may shift, but that won't have any effect on the leading causes of death for ages 15-34. It's a safe world out there now; young people generally don't die.
Thinking a little more about it, I'm not at all convinced it's a problem for suicide to be a leading cause of death in any demographic. Ordinal numbers are pretty useless for many purposes. I'd be pretty pleased to know that the only way for someone in my demographic (however defined) to die was by suicide.
Now I can understand why some are trying to use social media to detect who might be expressing feeling that are common with depression and suicidal thoughts.