Digital Natives

QUITTING FACEBOOK IS HARD. Like anything addictive, Facebook promises to scratch an itch that it only teases and inflames. We know how bad it is for our personal health, for the safety of marginalized people, and for the health of democracy — and we knew all this before former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen blew the whistle. Haugen’s stacks of documents exposed, if there were any doubt, how Facebook (or “Meta,” if we must) has prioritized profits over human well-being time and time again. But the ubiquitous big blue book remains persistently sticky.

Facebook is hard to quit, not just because of its dopamine microdosing, but because it provides a basic utility. Despite everything we know about it, the demonstrably