What are parasocial relationships?<\/a><\/p>\nThe rise of parasocial relationships<\/p>\n
The term parasocial dates to 1956, when two University of Chicago sociologists observed that television viewers engaged in parasocial relationships with on-screen personalities, resembling those they formed with ‘real’ family and friends.<\/p>\n
They observed how the flourishing television industry brought the faces and on-screen personalities of actors into viewer’s homes.<\/p>\n
Simone Schnall, professor of experimental social psychology at the University of Cambridge, said: “We’ve entered an age where many people form unhealthy and intense parasocial relationships with influencers.<\/p>\n
“This leads to a sense that people ‘know’ those they form parasocial bonds with, can trust them and even to extreme forms of loyalty.<\/p>\n
“Yet it’s completely one-sided.”<\/p>\n
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Image:
\n Perhaps you think you know what Ronaldo would say. Pic: Reuters<\/p>\n
She went on to say that as trust in mainstream media breaks down, people turn to individual personalities as authorities.<\/p>\n
After spending so many hours consuming content from these personality authorities, consumers end up developing parasocial bonds, seeing them more as friends, family or even cult leaders.<\/p>\n
She added that AI tools like ChatGPT, which many people treat as a friend, is adding a new dimension to parasocial relationships.<\/p>\n
She warned that: “This is an illusion of a relationship and group think, and we know young people can be susceptible for this.”<\/p>\n
Parasocial relationships also carry other risks.<\/p>\n
Following someone else’s experiences day in, day out, inevitably leads to social comparison – and can risk people developing unhealthy ideals or expectations.<\/p>\n
Other new words this year<\/p>\n
Other new words in this year’s Cambridge Dictionary include “delulu”, a play on the word delusional, gibberish word “skibidi” and “tradwife”, short for traditional wife.<\/p>\n
Other words noted as having an impact this year include “slop”; content on the internet that is of very low quality, especially that created by AI.<\/p>\n
Another is “memeify”, meaning to turn an event, image or person into a meme – an idea, joke, image or video that is quickly shared on the internet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do you feel like you know Alan Carr and what he would say or do? What about Taylor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-270134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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