Parasocial Relationships in a Digital World

Introduction

The 2000s song “Stan” by Eminem describes the fictional life and death of an Eminem superfan, who writes letters to the rapper that turn more and more unreasonable over time. The crazed fan, Stan, eventually takes his own life as well as that of his pregnant girlfriend after being convinced that Eminem had betrayed him since he had not written back to him, despite the connection Stan felt that they had had. This song has been included in the Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest songs of all time, and the term “stan” became widely used online to refer to very passionate supporters of a celebrity. The word eventually entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017, since its usefulness as a word became more and more apparent in our current social climate. Decades earlier in 1956, researchers Horton and Wohl published a paper describing a phenomenon where a member of an audience would feel distinctly like a performer was interacting with them specifically. The researchers called this phenomenon a “parasocial interaction”. They further explained that these interactions could develop into “parasocial relationship”, a form of one-sided attachment a fan could feel towards a celebrity. Although these terms were coined to describe the relationship between TV hosts and their fans, parasocial relationships have existed for much longer. Attachments to fictional characters, authors or even religious icons constitute a type of parasocial attachment, and although usage of the term is rather rare, the concept has had extensive mainstream attention under monickers such as ‘celebrity worship’ or ‘stanning’. In the era of social media, where interacting with public persons has become easier than it ever has before, parasocial relationships have evolved from a one-sided admiration to becoming semi-reciprocal. With this change in relationship dynamic, as well as with the prevalence and ease with which people form these parasocial bonds, it is important to gain an understanding of what aims and values in society has enabled the proliferation of PSRs (parasocial relationships), how these relationships have been integrated into the economy and what effects they are having on individuals’ mental health. This paper hopes to provide an extensive overview of the topic in order to inspire an information campaign for the general public from the ministry of health detailing the risks associated with overdependence on PSRs as well as pointing out societal values fostering it.

The Sociology of Parasocial Relationships

To be able to understand the space PSRs occupy in society, it is imperative to understand the societal context which has brought on its current widespread presence. Modern social media mediated PSRs, which are significantly more two-way than their predecessors, are part of a sociological concept called the ‘digital society,’ which encompasses all the new forms of interactions taking place because of the creation of the internet (Redshaw 2020). In many ways, digital society is not a clean break from previous eras. In terms of values and intents, it could be described as an intensification of modernity, which Redshaw describes as the worldwide integration of logic into practices to maximize productivity. Striving for optimal productivity serves to further move societies towards the goal of progress. By and large, digital society has been developed as a way to maximize profit, exemplified by the surveillance technology and data mining integral to the profitability of social media. Given that many processes can be accelerated by adapting them to an online format, it has become increasingly hard to opt out of digital society. By striving for progress and speed, more and more crucial services, and ways of fulfilling needs are being digitized. Following this logic, it is only natural that human relationships would be digitalized as well.

However, while PSRs do serve as a counterpart to traditional relationships, they also serve as a way to gain meaning in one’s life. As a consequence of the adoption of rationalism, people have felt a notable loss of meaning. This is because their lives are now dictated by schedules optimized for productivity and minimal time wastage, but the time they invest in being productive, to their knowledge, serves no greater purpose, rendering that time meaningless. This has occurred in part because of a decrease in religiosity, as the logic of faith has been replaced by rationalism, a result of the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation. The place that was occupied by religion in society, that of bringing meaning to people, therefore had to be filled through processes that work under capitalism. This is also a societal function of parasocial relationships.

Celebrity worshipping and influencer obsessions was able to fill in some of the space left behind by the decline in religiosity through their ability to integrate into people’s identities and form communities. Indeed, parasocial relationships on Twitch, a popular livestreaming platform, contribute to a higher sense of community, which includes feelings like belonging and importance within a group, as well as feeling that you can depend on the group (Sherrick et al. 2022). The paper uses two study methods to come to its conclusions. The first study consists of a survey of Twitch viewers who were recruited on online venues such as Facebook, Discord and Reddit, with the sampling method being that of snowball sampling. A total number of 110 participants’ results were utilized. The participants were questioned on their experience of parasocial interactions through a six-item list on a seven-point Likert scale with Strongly Disagree and Strong Agree as poles, on their parasocial relationships with 15 items on a 7-point Likert scale, and on sense of community using 24 items on a four-point scale.

The second study builds upon the results of study one using an experimental design that addressed the question of community size and its related impact on sense of community. The experimental study was completed online, through the participant viewing a video and filling out a survey. 198 students in communications courses were recruited to participate in this study. Relying on parasocial relationships for meaning was able to rise in popularity in a climate of speed and convenience because of the large number of icons there are to choose from as well as the fast rate at which they pop in and out of popular culture. This allows for public personas to provide a stable static image that people can securely build their identity on in a fast-changing world (Lucas 2020; Horton and Wohl 1956:216) while still conforming to the overall speed of the world through the high rate at which these static images are being turned out and the relative speed at which icons become obsolete in popular culture. This means that should there ever be a controversy surrounding any one celebrity, it will always be convenient and fast to find someone else to form a parasocial bond with, and the new icons can better conform to new societal values when old ones go out of fashion (Lucas 2020).

Adding to this the accessibility of PSRs through social media, PSRs are able to perform in every aspect which bog down religion in an age of logic and speed. Celebrity worship culture also reflects another aspect of the modern era, which involves the commodification of all human experiences.

Surveillance Capitalism and Influencer Marketing

The economic framework behind the successful commodification of PSRs is that of surveillance capitalism. When users navigate and utilize the internet, they generate data through their online habits, which can be analyzed and sold to companies in order to predict their consuming habits and more effectively sell them products (Jones 2025). The study that found this was researching the role of visibility labour in surveillance economy in the context of Instagram Live. Data was collected through the walkthrough method, which analyzes the interface of an application through a technological and cultural lens in order to document how the app guides its users. The information is then contextualized through a technological and cultural studies framework. This method of gathering data by Instagram and others has shaped the digital landscape into what it is today, a tool for data collection that serves as a way for companies to deduce the thoughts, emotions and concerns of their users (Zuboff 2019). Adding to this the neoliberal economic ideology that dominates the current system, which favours the use of market ideologies in the social sphere (Jones 2025), there results a considerable commodification of the personal and social spheres of life with that of the commercial. By shaping society through the pervasive presence of digital tools in our lives, which constantly assess our online data footprint to predict consumer behaviour, surveillance capitalism has managed to profoundly impact the ways in which society functions. The digitalization of essential needs and human experiences is encouraged, as it increases the amount of data collected, and furthers companies’ ability to profit off of people. This has created an attentional economy where people’s attention has become a sought-after resource since there is much more content that demands attention online than there is attention that people can pay (Vaidhyanathan 2018:80).

This relates to PSRs in that a version of attentional economy is that of the influencer economy. The effectiveness of this economic strategy is visible through the economic value of influencer marketing, which was worth $12 billion USD in the US and around $30 billion globally in 2021, according to the LA Times (23 September 2021). Influencers can both make content that people can pay attention to and thus they generate data on the viewers, and they can advertise products that the companies deem are relevant to their audience, which they have determined through the data gathered on the viewers. Influencers are therefore incentivized to foster parasocial relationships with their audience, since they stand to gain more capital from it, both in audience metrics and money (Hund 2023).

Parasocial Relationships and their Psychological Effects

The adoption of PSRs reflects wider societal trends, as some people find it reasonable to trade in the depth of two-way relationships because of their potential for causing pain for the convenience and speed of modern PSRs. According to a study conducted by Degen, people are even willing to accept that their PSR has ulterior financial motivations, justifying it as an inevitable part of capitalist society (Degen 2023). The decrease in depth and fulfillment is exemplified by the social isolation and loneliness crises, which was found to be an issue through a systematic meta-analytical review of the overall magnitude of isolation and loneliness through their impact on mortality (Holt-Lundstadt et al. 2015). This may be in part because of the integration of PSRs into peoples’ social portfolios (Lotun et al. 2024) despite PSRs’ inability to meaningfully replace traditional relationships. A study looking at PSRs with social media influencers when looking over a pool of 430 participants, all residents of the U.S. and recruited through the professional sampling corporation Dynata, with data gathered using an online survey through Qualtrics found that PSRs do not help decrease a person’s level of loneliness (Liu and Lee 2024) The researchers measured interaction with the SMI through two questions on a 7-point scale, parasocial relationship with the influencer with a five-item 7 point Likert scale, sense of belonging with another five-item 7 point Likert scale and perceived social support using a four item 7 point Likert scale. These findings point to PSRs being more useful as s temporary tool against loneliness, rather than as a way to permanently reduce loneliness. This use case is further supported by the fact that people sometimes perceive their PSRs as being just as capable of fulfilling their emotional needs as their two-way relationships (Lotun et al. 2024). The paper that came to these results conducted three studies. The first and third studies recruited participants through a group of ten influencers who promoted the survey link through their Youtube videos. There were 1,688 participants in study 1, aged 16-78. The second study was conducted through a survey and had 501 participants from the U.S. and the U.K. who were recruited by Prolific Academic. Study 3 counted 896 participants aged 18-69. All three studies measured quantitative data using a seven-item measure of emotional need fulfillment, a twelve-item measure for perceived responsiveness, and a ten-item measure of self-esteem. Though this perceived emotional need satisfaction fails to confirm whether PSRs are as capable at fulfilling this role as people perceive them to be, and with much evidence against its capacity to prevent loneliness, it does seem to provide at least perceived emotional need fulfillment to those who happen to rely on them. However, consistently relying on PSRs has been shown to contribute to feelings of loneliness (Baek et al.2013). Regardless of their effectiveness as counterparts to traditional relationships, PSRs have managed to become integral parts of many people’s identities. This happens when a person feels a particularly strong parasocial attachment towards the media personality, as shown in a study by Johanna L. Degen (2023). In this study, twenty-two participants from Germany and Denmark were recruited using the snowball system, all of whom were frequent users of Instagram and followed at least two influencers with more than 10,000 followers. The in-depth interview data analysis follows the content analysis set out by Mayring, which emphasizes inductive coding, meaning that insights are carved out of the data, rather than looking for data based on a thesis. This study categorizes parasocial attachments into two categories depending on the subject’s ability rationalize actions by the media influencer that goes against the subject’s view of them, as well as what role the parasocial relationship plays in the subject’s life. The categories of “Pragmatically Rationalizing” and “Emotionally Identified” are further subdivided into three more categories each, with augmenting levels of parasociality. The first major category includes people who are able to rationally view advertisements presented by SMIs (social media influencers) and reflect on them, using them if they feel that the ad serves their own needs. The second major category is comprised of people who talk emotionally about their PSRs, who demonstrate compulsive behaviour, in extreme cases resembling addiction, and who integrate the PSR into their sense of identity. They idolize the SMI and feel strong parasocial attachment towards them, which brings them to attribute great meaning to their PSRs. This leads to severe effects on the subject’s life, like prioritizing the PSR over face-to-face relationships. Facets of the influencer that the subject would usually view negatively are overwritten in a positive light. In the subcategory with the highest parasociality, the subject feels fear at the prospect of losing the relationship, since they feel dependent on it and feel they would be helpless without it. They identify strongly with the influencer and their community, othering people who are not part of the community. Taking into consideration all of the current information on PSRs, it can be seen that they can both benefit and hinder the psychological wellbeing of a person depending on their reliance on the PSR and their level of parasociality. If negatively affected by the PSR, the person could also suffer financially due to their incapability to rationalize advertisements from the media personality.

Conclusion

The current manifestation of PSRs is a result of the logic of rationalism overtaking that of faith. With this decrease in meaning-making institutions, PSRs also serve as a substitute for religiosity as a stable way to form an identity and belong to a group. PSRs also prove themselves to be fast-paced and commercially viable, traits that are positively seen in our society, through their being embedded within the structure of surveillance capitalism. PSRs are particularly fundamental to the influencer economy, a form of attentional economy that is also part of surveillance capitalism. PSRs have been shown to be positively correlated to loneliness, even though people perceive the relationships to be emotionally satisfying. People fall into two categories of parasociality depending on their ability to rationalize discrepancies between the public persona’s actions and the subject’s perception of them.

Considering that modern PSRs are a product of societal values and economic ideology of modernity, it would be fruitless to try to significantly affect their creation unless widespread societal change were to occur. However, given the negative psychological effects associated with strong parasociality, it would be unwise to leave the current situation as it is. Legislation of PSRs would prove difficult, due to the natural human instinct to form social bonds towards others, whether one way or not. Legislation would also negatively affect many who are part of the influencer economy. However, it would be interesting to reflect on whether the values that push for the proliferation of PSRs are to the best interest of the population. Legislators should, in light of these findings, posit ways in which human needs are organized in a more ethical manner.

Considering these challenges, the best course of action would be to allow for individuals to gain the tools to rationally view and interpret their PSRs. By creating a public awareness campaign, the general public will be able to learn about PSRs’ ineffectiveness against loneliness, and be able to effectively recognize the presence of PSRs in their daily lives. The campaign should outline the main psychological conclusions of this paper, as this information would be most pertinent to the average person. The organization best placed to create such a campaign in Quebec would be the Ministry of Health. This would align with their interests in promoting a healthier population and would allow them to address the loneliness crisis. However, it is important to bear in mind the possibility that PSRs do not negatively affect people, but rather that people who are lonely and cannot find ways to remedy that in their social environment are forced to rely on PSRs. Given that this may be the case, negative portrayal of PSRs is unadvisable and potentially harmful. Emphasis should be placed on the negative effects of over-reliance on PSRs, not on the PSRs themselves.

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