Social Media Use and Parasocial Attachment: A Correlational Study of Young Adults’ Celebrity Interactions

Abstract

This study investigated the association between parasocial relationships (PSRs) and social media usage among young adults within a post-COVID digital environment. Utilizing a correlational research design, participants (N=120) completed the Celebrity-Persona Parasocial Interaction Scale (CPPI) and the Celebrity-Persona Identification Scale (CPI), in addition to providing information regarding their daily social media use, preferred platforms, types of celebrities followed, and online engagement behaviors (such as liking, commenting, and sharing). Contrary to initial hypotheses, the findings revealed no statistically significant correlation between social media usage and the strength of PSRs on either scale. However, a strong positive correlation was observed between CPPI and CPI scores, suggesting consistency between interaction-based and identification-based parasocial tendencies. While gender differences were not statistically significant, males reported marginally higher CPI scores. Furthermore, no significant differences in PSR strength were identified across various digital engagement behaviors. These results imply that the development of parasocial relationships may be more heavily influenced by internal psychological factors rather than the frequency or type of social media use, offering valuable insights into one-sided relationships within digital communication contexts.