Teenagers, it seems, have never had it so good. They have more opportunities than ever before, and have never had to go through a world war. In fact, to quote a legion of grumpy pensioners, "They don't know they're born."
But if they are living such a charmed life, why do two young people in the UK and Ireland kill themselves every day?
Anne Parry, a secondary school science teacher from Wales, has been looking for answers to this question since one of her sons took his own life in 1994 at the age of 21. She had suspected there was something "terribly wrong" with him, but without any knowledge of suicide risk signs did not realise just how serious the situation was.
"He was good looking, intelligent and articulate - but also very sensitive, and very concerned about things like exam results, which other people might think quite minor," says Parry.
"Like many other young people, he didn't talk to us about a lot of things. He would lie in bed for hours during the day and stay up all night.
"The trigger, for him, was breaking up with his girlfriend. He lost weight and started to take a lot of risks - he would drive as if he didn't care whether he killed himself or anyone else."
His death made him part of a disturbing trend. While the suicide rate among adults and girls in all industrialised countries has remained relatively static since the 1970s, youth suicide overall has tripled and is now the major cause of death after accidents.
Although three times as many girls actually attempt suicide, boys are four times more likely to succeed - they tend to use more violent means.
Even worse, for each suicide there could be anything up to 100 unsuccessful attempts. Three young people every hour self-harm (cutting their skin at times of stress, or resorting to cries for help, such as taking overdoses and then calling 999) - double the number of 25 years ago.
These figures seem quite modest when compared with the United States, Australia and New Zealand, which has the highest teen suicide rate in the western world. But we should take little comfort from this, according to Dr Nicola Madge of the National Children's Bureau.
"The real figures could be two or three times higher than official statistics suggest," she says. "UK coroners can record a verdict of suicide only on the basis of proof, whereas in many other countries this is done on balance of probabilities, so some deaths by misadventure, such as drug overdoses or single car accidents, are probably suicides."
Parry and her surviving son have both had cancer since James' death, and she attributes this, in part, to the trauma of having to get over his suicide.
"You spend your whole time trying to understand why he chose death instead of life, whether we were at all to blame, and why he did not tell his father or me - who would have given our own lives to save him had we only known," she says.
Parry is now chair of Papyrus, a group dedicated to raising awareness about youth suicide, and thinks her family has survived by talking and being open about what happened.
For many parents, however, the despair is crippling. Relatives of young people who have committed suicide go on to be at greater risk of suicide themselves.
Theories of the reasons behind suicide abound. It is possible that some of the rise may simply be due to increasing frankness about this once taboo subject. In Muslim countries, where suicide is forbidden, it appears not to exist. Similarly, the rates were apparently very low in Ireland until 1993, when it became the last European country to decrimi nalise suicide. The figures have shot up by more than 70% since then.
For Simon Armson, chief executive of the Samaritans, the key factor behind youth suicide is pressure.
"The pace of life is faster than ever now. There is academic pressure, peer-group pressure to get involved in things like drugs, pressure to find a good job and, for young men especially, our society still expects them to have a stiff upper lip."
The Samaritans receive 5m calls per year - up from 1.4m in 1978. Over the same period, the number of volunteers has declined by around 25% to 18,700, most of whom are above the average age of the population. The charity is hoping to recruit younger people.
It runs programmes in schools and there is even an online counselling service - which young people may feel more comfortable with than talking on the phone or face-to-face about their problems. The number of hits in 2001 increased by 40% from 2000.
Parry agrees with Armson: "As a teacher, I have seen the pressure on children increase massively over the years. They are now being tested at seven, 11, 13, 16, 17 and 18.
"At parents' evenings I often end up telling parents to lay off their children. Many proudly tell me about how many hours homework they make them do each night - without realising how much impact their high expectations can have. With the hindsight of my own experience, I often see that children in fact need to be encouraged to take time off."
Boys are at particular risk. Their reluctance to talk about their feelings means they may take a drastic and permanent solution to what was actually only a short-term problem.
In surveys published by the Samaritans, 20% of young people said they would laugh if a male friend admitted he was suicidal. Perhaps most importantly, two-thirds of men said that women have gained influence in life while men have lost it.
Many researchers feel the decline in traditional "male" jobs, such as farming or fishing, has left young men feeling undervalued. Many grow up in families with a female breadwinner, while the men they know are unemployed, kicked out of the family home or belittled - leaving them without role models and feeling hopeless about their future. Unsurprisingly, the problem often goes hand in hand with poverty. The rate in Scotland is almost double that in England.
Drugs and alcohol play a huge role too - at least a third of people are drunk or on drugs at the time they kill themselves, and boys are 10 times more likely to "self-medicate" to beat stress than girls.
Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, eating disorders and depression, which are linked to many suicides, tend to make their first appearance in the teenage years. Although having such a condition does not mean someone is doomed to commit suicide, teenagers are much less likely to seek professional help.
Research is being carried out worldwide, and the United Nations has advised governments to set up programmes to deal with all factors linked to suicide, including mental health, youth unemployment, bullying (there is one "bullycide" in the UK each month), sexual abuse, racism, drugs and alcoholism.
Nicola Madge says: "While the prevention of suicide is of course the goal, it is very difficult to identify who is at risk, or to know what prevention measures really work - apart from short-term things like reducing the ease of access to the means of suicide, which may stop some people from acting on impulse."
Such measures include selling paracetamol in packets of no more than 16 - a non-lethal dose - and putting up barriers at popular suicide sites, such as Beachy Head.
Others focus on bringing down the levels of copycat suicides, which have been particularly common among teenagers, following the deaths or suicides of famous people.
Press codes of conduct have largely seen an end to dramatic headlines and vivid descriptions of suicide methods splashed across front pages. When Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain killed himself, the expected cluster of copycat suicides did not happen - apparently because the media reported the death sensitively, and prominently advertised helpline numbers.
Parry adds: "Suicide is devastating, but it's not an epidemic. People shouldn't feel hopeless or terrified - it is often preventable, just as long as people can talk problems through rather than keeping them in."
· Samaritans: 08457 909090 or www.samaritains.org.uk; Papyrus: 01706 214449 or www.papyrus-uk.org
