Yes, but the clickbait headline is a million miles from what is being explored by these studies.If you google for terms like parasocial relationship cognitive impairment deficit it looks like it’s a question that’s been considered for some time.
Do another search for parasocial relationships + any other term, including positives outcomes, you’ll see results for that too.
I think we’re only just starting to explore what it means for so many huge numbers of humans to fixate and obsess on people we’ve never met. Before the internet, and before the pandemic (which has increased numbers, I think) parasocial relationships were still in the minority. Now, we’re in - or nearing - the situation where people have more online relationships (with people they never or rarely meet) than IRL relationships.
E.M Forster’s The Machine Stops should be required reading.
I notice that Radio 4 has dramatised it recently.
Drama - The Machine Stops - BBC Sounds
EM Forster's prescient vision of humanity isolated from each other, reliant on technology.www.bbc.co.uk
Obsessing over celebrities may be linked to lower intelligence study suggests....
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danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Oh wow, that study was led by Lynn McCutcheon! She’s amazing. She wrote Getting Something Out of Psychology. I’m a huge fan. When I was in Florida I staked out her college hoping to bump into her. She’s so cool.Happily not something I have to worry about but perhaps something to cause concern for the (now booted) Cranberries megafan that was online here...
People Who Worship Celebrities Have Lower Cognitive Abilities, Study Suggests
People Who Worship Celebrities Have Lower Cognitive Abilities, Study Suggestswww.iflscience.com
story
Changing the facts
I’m not sure that it is. Or at any rate, you could say that about any article that focuses on one aspect of any topic.
Information spreads through many tributaries to inform more generally. I think you know this. So long as it’s factually correct that’s not in and of itself a problem, even if it’s given in simplified terms.
Someone like you or bimble or I might see that headline and go look for more in depth, detailed, nuanced sources. Others might be quite content with the “did you know…. the other day I read a thing….” chit-chat level of content. Like we used to have when we’d meet for a drink or a cuppa.
(Tbh I rarely read pop articles. If it looks interesting I’ll take the headline and go looking elsewher, like I did with this one. So honestly, I’ve not read the article. Maybe I should. It’s actually a topic * I’ve been meandering through and pondering over for some time, so I’m not annoyed to see it becoming more mainstream.)
One of the problems, I think, is that having so many parasocial relationships (which may be replacing or substituting for those chats around the pub table) means that we (you, they) no longer have sufficient checks and balances in place. So we don’t have someone there going “that’s bolllocks tho innit“ and thus we‘re more likely to end up in information dead ends and echo chambers.
ETA
Okay, read it now. The key word in the headline is “suggests” because of course there are no firm conclusions. It links to a paper, which is useful although many (most?) won’t read it.
*the topic that interests me isn’t specifically cognitive impairment caused by fixation on parasocial relationships, but the larger and wider impact, which is currently largely unknown.
As we enter the age of AI, our parasocial relationships will become ever more significant. I’m curious about how we develop (individually, socially, intellectually, emotionally, psychologically….. ) alongside that.
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hitmouse
music obfuscation technology
This proper almost made me laugh out loud in the middle of a work Teams meeting.
Catching up on the rest of the thread, I see it's pretty much been covered, but I would think there's not that much of a difference, it's just that boys are more likely to be obsessed with celebs via either football or music, which is perhaps seen differently but somewhat similar in how it works?
And they're all Hungarians, so we can't rule out that there's just something odd going on with Hungarians.
Yep, there's a lot to say about that, especially what it means for people to be getting celebrity levels of scrunity while also just having "ordinary" lives with none of the material perks of being celebrities. For it to be parasocial, does it have to be one-sided? Is this conversation parasocial or is it something else?
Read it last year (I think? pandemic time is weird) and agree it's great, should be as well known as Orwell/Huxley/Bradbury. Astonishingly prescient considering when it was written.
story
Changing the facts
It‘s an interesting question, eh. And extends to playing with multiple others on video games, Twitch streamers who communicate with their fans via electronic voice and a scrolling wall of messages etc.
Maybe a term like….. mediated parasocial relationship? mutual PR?
Before all the new interactive tech, parasocial relationships could only ever be one way (we gaze, they perform). That’s why that Bowie TotP moment was so powerful, because he ignored the fact it was only one way and assumed & acted as if he could interact directly with those gazing. I don’t think anyone had ever done that on television before… ?
With so many people reporting loneliness “often or always” - even youngsters now - it may be that some of us report in with online people more thoroughly, thoughtfully, truthfully, and more often, than we do with IRL people.
I think the pandemic and lockdowns has precipitated a lot of this. Whether ir not it would have happened anyway, we’ve taken a bit of a left turn in the last two years and now it’s become more accepted normalised.
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also now gaming youtubers
girasol
Addicted to handstands!
Without reading the article, my first thought is that humans like to worship/admire/observe other people and celebrities give the equivalent of gods/semi gods/fairy tale drama & excitement that is just not worth having in your actual life because the reality of it actually sucks, so we just watch other people go through it while living calmer lives? Maybe not. Maybe I just explained why I'm interested in them - not obsessively, but interesting to observe.
There's a very interesting podcast on reality shows history and why people like them on BBC Sounds. There it is BBC Sounds - Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV - Available Episodes
I think that saying people who are obsessed with celebrities have lower IQs is reductionist. So, it's OK to be obsessed with trains, or sports or music, but not celebrities? It's just another field of interest.
There's a very interesting podcast on reality shows history and why people like them on BBC Sounds. There it is BBC Sounds - Unreal: A Critical History of Reality TV - Available Episodes
I think that saying people who are obsessed with celebrities have lower IQs is reductionist. So, it's OK to be obsessed with trains, or sports or music, but not celebrities? It's just another field of interest.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I think it'd have something to do with the dreadful writing which is how most coverage of celebs is written, breathless shite like the prurient bollocks in the mail or the gushing wank that is hello!
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
Back in my teens, it used to be put, somewhat pointedly to us that it was our misguided desire for guidance from god coming out in ways that suggested we needed to be put back on the path of righteousness, firmly!
Err, OK..!
pogofish
Testicle Hairstyle
Does that mean that the time I directed a member of Stiff Little Fingers to the stairs to our most notorious local coke-procurment establishment makes me an obsessional superfan..?
muscovyduck
Good IT skills and food hygiene competent
I remember feeling like I was groomed into obsessing over celebrities rather than it happening naturally
I love loads of 80s Synth stuff. The Bass lines make most of them. And I could name the synths also if we want to go down geek routes.((((magnus))))
When I was 13 and had her posters on my wall it was a teenage crush, but her music isn't shit in pop terms. It was the best at that time or up there with them.
Actually I was 11 not 13 lol.
Her singing is amazing though.
She's a genius basically.
bellaozzydog
rolling turds in glitter
What was the result of the court caseThe Wagatha thread will have dropped some of us a dozen or more points
I really, really wish I had time to get into this. But one of the very many things that bothers me about this whole discussion is the equating of “cognitive impairment” with the reduction of some kind of common perception of “intelligence”. Cognition refers to all kinds of brain processes, such as perception of colour, production of speech, processing of words and generation of motor actions. By contrast, after 100 years of money being thrown at it, nobody has yet produced compelling evidence for the existence of a general intelligence quotient. So even leaving aside the socially constructed nature of what comprises “celebrity” and obsession with it (which is where the real meat lies), what precisely is the nature of this particular “cognitive impairment”, in terms of its functional role?
This isn’t a problem with the research itself — it’s a problem with the way in which it has been brought into the public domain. Knowledge isn’t just neutral fact, it’s contextual and subtle in its implication. In general, I think science does a really bad job of recognising that and taking some responsibility for how it is reported and used in the wider world.
"study authors posit that celebrity obsession may hinder cognitive capacities due to the intense level of focus and attention required to maintain this “one-sided emotional bond”
In other words, hyperfocussing on one subject to the detriment of others.
Maybe the study should have looked at how that happens.
In other words, hyperfocussing on one subject to the detriment of others.
Maybe the study should have looked at how that happens.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
It happens a fair bit on here too.
A pop-culture celeb gets a mention and someone will quote the name and ask "who?"
It's sneery shorthand for 'I'm far too intelligent to know of, or have any interest in, people like this'.
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story
Changing the facts
I don’t disagree with any of this.
Had I more time myself today I’d give a better reply than this.
Just to briefly say that the process of staring at a screen etc probably has something to do with the way we’re seeing “cognitive impairment” (as opposed to intelligence, not meaning intelligence) apparently compromised,
As always, one of the problems with discussions on here is that we have a talking stick (our post), say a thing, get it refuted, offer something in return…. It’s not a natural way of discussing ideas. Had we queried or tried to set definitions earlier we’d not be stuck on the point now.
I still think the g enteral point raised in the OP is worth examination.
tommers
It was... Rebekah Vardy's account
I don't even have a TV, I just read books.
Or simply that not everyone has the same interests?
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
paul mckenna
Bellend
See also: endless moaning about Brixton night tourism VS running a Brixton events website
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