ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between the transformations that have occurred in a rapidly changing social media-driven world, young people’s consumption and their sense of self. Our aim is to assess the extent to which new processes of individualisation and high levels of uncertainty create an incentive for young people to redefine the way they use consumption as a vehicle for creating and navigating individual biographies. It is long established that consumption constitutes the primary arena within which young people try to construct their identities and establish themselves. However, in this chapter we consider the suggestion that social media representations function as a parallel arena that has profoundly altered the way in which young people use consumption to identify themselves with the world around them.
