Does Rousseau's view of autobiography serve an important social function today?

Rousseau's conception of biography, I would argue, performs an important social function today. This is because we live in a psychoanalytic society that values introspection, and Rousseau was one of the first philosophers to shine a light on the importance of this kind of self-examination. Rousseau turned to himself as an object of study in a series of autobiographical works, mostly famously his Confessions, in a quest for a truer understanding of himself. He did this, he said, not out of vanity or an inflated sense of his own importance, but from a desire for knowledge. He wanted, he said, to find his true self, the one that would emerge when all the societal corruptions that had built up over it were peeled away. He called this quest for awareness the true love of self. From this self-discovery would follow, he felt, an authentic way of living and being. Feeling was all-important to this project, as summed up in Rousseau's idea that "I feel, therefore I am." The kind of introspection Rousseau pioneered has been valuable in two ways to modern people. In a positive sense, those who can truly better understand themselves through self-examination can function in a more productive way and help build a better society. In a negative sense, the blind spots and divorce from society that Rousseau's own introspection engendered in him can serve as a caution against too much introspection and too much reliance on feeling alone.