Social media has again come under fire, with charges that it has been designed to be "addictive."

Be that as it may, what people use it for can also lead to a deep dependence.

Of particular importance are self-making tasks—exploring identity, finding a community, generating visibility.

Two recent jury verdicts have cast a harsh light on social media. A New Mexico jury found Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook, negligent for misleading users about the safety of its platforms. A day later, a jury in Los Angeles found Meta and YouTube liable for “addictive” design features, such as infinite scroll and algorithmic recommendations, that ensnared a young user, causing her significant mental health harms.1

Covering the L.A. trial, a New York Times reporter anticipated the verdict. Criticism of social media has been growing for a decade, he noted, and although 3 billion people use Facebook and Instagram, that doesn’t mean they “approve of social media or even like it.” But, sounding like someone talking about addiction, he added, “they just can’t imagine being without it.”2

Why not? Why does social media have such a grip on so many? Besides Silicon Valley skullduggery, a place to look is in what people say they need it for. In an earlier post, I considered our diminishing social connection. The use of social media, I argued, was both an indicator of the decline in community participation and growing loneliness and a response to it. Here, I want to take up another social need that long predated social media. We might call this task “self-formation,” the now-familiar process/business/ordeal (take your pick) of producing and sustaining a personal identity.

Since at least the 1960s, the disciplinary society has been disappearing. That is, the stable institutions that had constrained individuals and set clear expectations for them, whether........

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