Are You in a One-Sided Relationship With Your Favorite Influencer? Psychology Says It Might Be Making You Lonelier

cscala — Thu, 10 Sep 2026 16:14:51 +0000

If you’ve answered yes to any, you might be in a parasocial relationship, according to Julianna Nails, a PhD student in clinical psychology at the �鶹��ýӳ�� Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology.

For the past several years, Nails has been studying the rise of parasocial relationships—or one-sided emotional connections between fans and public figures—in the age of social media. She wants to know what kinds of people are seeking out parasocial relationships with social media influencers, and what effects, if any, these relationships are having on their mental health.

At first glance, a parasocial relationship with an influencer might seem like a silver bullet for isolated young adults—a population wracked by a so-called global “loneliness epidemic.” Attachments to influencers allow feelings of intimacy to be accessed anytime, anywhere, with no risk of rejection. Nails was curious to learn more about the psychological consequences of these relationships. Can they really relieve loneliness? Or do they ultimately replace in-person connections and push people to isolate?

A Student-Faculty Collaboration That’s Breaking New Ground

As an undergraduate, Nails researched the decline of college students’ mental health since the 1980s. “Today, college students are significantly more anxious and depressed than they were a generation ago,” she said, “and I suspected social media had something to do with that.” That hunch became a full-fledged research project once she entered �鶹��ýӳ��’s PhD program and found a faculty mentor in Katherine L. Fiori, PhD, professor and associate dean at the Derner School.

For Dr. Fiori, a developmental psychologist who studies interpersonal relationships and attachments, parasocial relationships were a promising line of scholarly inquiry. When she was introduced to Nails through Derner’s research mentor matching process, she had already been thinking about today’s “phone-based childhoods,” which have supplanted the “play-based childhoods” of yesteryear. If children now grow up with ubiquitous access to social media platforms, she wondered, are they more likely to form unhealthy attachments with the people on platforms? Parasociality offered a compelling entry into further exploration.

While looking into the literature, Nails and Dr. Fiori discovered a gap: parasocial relationships specifically with social media influencers. “It’s such a big part of young people’s online experience today,” Nails said, “but it’s something that hadn’t been studied in depth before.”

Their work has been more collaborative than the student-faculty dynamic might connote. “I’ve really enjoyed working together,” Nails said. “This is a newer interest for Dr. Fiori, so while she’s able to give me a lot of guidance, we’re still brainstorming together. I’m not necessarily being directed by an authority.” Dr. Fiori agrees, saying she often feels like she’s “speaking with a colleague.”

Surveying Where, Why and How Parasocial Relationships Are Formed

Since beginning her doctoral training in 2024, Nails has developed several different research projects to answer her research questions. Most recently, she presented her findings at �鶹��ýӳ��’s Scholarship and Creative Works Conference and the International Association for Relationship Research’s annual conference in Scotland.

For her master’s thesis, Nails created a research survey for people between the ages of 18 and 29 who follow influencers on any platform. Survey participants were asked about their connection with their favorite influencer—in particular, whether their opinions and values align with the influencer’s—as well as their other social relationships, social media usage and emotional well-being.

Nails and Dr. Fiori are still sifting through data from the survey, but they’ve already identified several trends. “There are a lot of ways in which people are ‘using’ influencers,” Dr. Fiori noted. For some, “fun” or “entertainment” was the draw. Others admitted they were finding real social support from their favorite influencer.

Though influencers create content about everything from politics to tech gadgets, travel and fitness, the most popular content niche among survey respondents was “day in my life.” In these videos, an influencer takes the audience through a regular day, often beginning with a morning routine and their OOTD (outfit of the day), then interpolating clips of meals, exercise, work, errands and socializing over a voiceover narration. The content is frothy, but the audience appeal is, inexplicably, enormous. “We’re working on figuring that one out,” Nails said. “Are ‘day in my life’ videos providing pure entertainment value? Are they aspirational? Or are people feeling an emotional connection there?”

The Parasocial Paradox

At first, Nails hypothesized that parasocial relationships would reduce feelings of loneliness. As more survey data came in, however, she saw evidence of the opposite: Young people who form parasocial relationships are actually lonelier than those who don’t. Still, like many hypotheses in psychology research, this one is still correlational, not causal. In other words, Nails and Dr. Fiori don’t yet know if parasociality is making people lonely, or if lonely people are simply more likely to pursue parasocial relationships.

“We know what the intention is,” Dr. Fiori said. “People seek out relationships because they want to feel less lonely. But the brain isn’t equipped to think about parasocial relationships as different from in-person relationships, even though they are.” She’s hesitant to believe that parasocial relationships can have the same benefits, although the reality is, she says, a little more complicated. “Some young people with supportive friends and family will use influencers for extra support. Some don’t, and these relationships are all they have. That drives very different outcomes.”

Only further research will tell if parasocial relationships really do cause loneliness. As Nails embarks on work for her doctoral dissertation, she’s hoping to discover evidence of causality between parasociality and negative mental health outcomes, such as anxiety and depression, among young people.

“Everything in Moderation”

For now, Nails doesn’t necessarily recommend doing a digital detox if you think you’ve formed a parasocial relationship with an influencer. Instead, she says, focus on the reciprocal relationships in your life—your networks through work, school or hobbies, the friends and family you talk to every day—and you might see that obsessive, one-directional attachment fade to casual interest. “So far, our greatest takeaway has been ‘everything in moderation.’”

The post Are You in a One-Sided Relationship With Your Favorite Influencer? Psychology Says It Might Be Making You Lonelier appeared first on �鶹��ýӳ��.