Social Media and the Search for Self: Answering the Question of Identity

Who am I?

Have you ever asked yourself that nagging question? If you have, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most pressing struggles of our culture today. Everywhere you turn, people are wrestling with identity—questions of gender, sexuality, belonging, purpose. Sometimes I feel like the ground is shifting beneath our feet so quickly that it’s difficult to navigate how to help people know who they are and where they fit in.

Your Dad and Your Self

Not long ago, I came across a study that made me pause. It surprised me because it revealed just how deep the question of identity runs. Researchers gathered a group of 25 adults who had been adopted. They sat down in focus groups and were asked about their lives, their families, and—most importantly—how adoption had shaped their sense of self. The purpose of the study wasn’t necessarily to probe whether or not the participants were dealing with existential questions like, “Who am I?” but that’s exactly what bubbled to the surface.

What they discovered was striking: many of these men and women, though deeply shaped by the love and values of their adoptive families, still carried an ache for something more. When some of them finally met their biological parents—especially their fathers—they described the experience in almost existential terms. One participant said that learning about their birth relatives “turned question marks into periods.” Another spoke of the comfort of finally seeing physical and personality traits that explained parts of themselves they could never quite account for before. In short, meeting their biological father gave them a sense of clarity of their identity.

Isn’t that fascinating? In spite of living in stable and loving adoptive homes, there remained a longing to know the father whose blood ran in their veins. It raised questions that I can’t shake: Why does knowing your biological father change how you see yourself? Why is there such a mysterious connection between our ontology—where did I come from?—and our dads?

I could not help but wonder whether this connection was a clue to the identity issue of our generation.

A Warning Ahead of the Curve

Sometime ago, Erwin Lutzer wrote a book called We Will Not Be Silenced, in which he pointed out just how dramatic the cultural shift occurred concerning sexual identity. He noted that in 2004, nearly 60 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage. By 2020, that number had flipped—now only about 40 percent oppose it.

As Lutzer questioned what caused this change, he drew from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who observed that the year 2007 marked a cultural tipping point. Do you know what happened that year? That was the year the iPhone was released. It was also the year that Facebook expanded beyond college campuses, Twitter spun off, YouTube was acquired by Google, and Amazon launched the Kindle. In short, the internet went from being a tool we used occasionally to being the very fabric of our daily lives.

James Emery White, a cultural analyst and pastor, made a similar observation in his article Five Things We Now Know the Online World Is Doing to Us. He argued that the digital revolution didn’t just change how we communicate; it fundamentally altered how we think, how we relate to one another, and how we see ourselves. He warned that social media, in particular, has the power to shape identity with stunning speed—and suggested that it was accelerating cultural change in ways no one could have imagined.

What’s striking is that Lutzer and White were sounding the alarm before most of us could even see what was happening. And today, the research is catching up with their instincts. Studies confirm that social media use profoundly affects self-image, belonging, and mental health. It can distort reality, fragment families and communities, and create false mirrors for identity. 

A friend of mine recently described our use of A.I. as kissing our own reflection in the water without realizing how deep, cold, and dangerous the water is. 

The Answer to the Big Question: Who Am I?

If all of this tells us anything, it’s that our culture is desperately searching for identity in places that cannot sustain it. Social media promises connection, but delivers comparison. Technology offers information, but not wisdom. Even the rediscovery of a biological father—powerful as it is—only points us toward a deeper truth: There is only one real source of identity: you need to know your Father.

Scripture speaks with breathtaking clarity and relevance about this subject. In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul writes that God “loved us and chose us in Christ . . . God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:4–5, NLT).

Think about that for a moment. Before the world was created, before your parents ever came together for your beginning, before you ever drew your first breath—you were already loved. You were not an accident of biology or history. You were, and are, an intentional creation of God.

Do you realize what that means for your identity? Think about the implications of two unshakable truths:

1. You have purpose and hope. Your existence is no accident. You are not random, as the kids might say. Any worldview that denies that a person is created robs people of the grounding they need for a healthy sense of self. If human life is nothing more than a cosmic accident, then so are you. But more than discovering your biological father, when you accept that you were created by the Heavenly Father, you begin to see yourself as having purpose, as having meaning - you realize who you are.
2. You are loved. Ephesians doesn’t just say God created us; it says He loved us into existence. Your creation was not a sterile act of divine mechanics. It was an incredible act of God’s delight. You were designed not only to live, but to be loved.

This is where a healthy ontology begins. Not in the likes and followers of social media. Not in the ever-shifting opinions of our culture. Your identity is grounded in the eternal reality that you are an intentional creation of the living God.

You do not need to question whether you were some sort of accident, placed in the wrong body, or a freak of some cosmic confusion. Once it becomes settled in your heart that God intentionally designed you just as you are, and He did so out of love for you - it completely transforms your sense of self.

While the iPhone and social media are recent events of cultural development - and I use “development” loosely - the time-tested, ancient, inspired Word of God pushes back against the lies of our screens and reveals to us our true identity.

Who are you? You are His creation. You were loved into existence. You should definitely like and follow that!