Parasocial Interaction, the COVID-19 Quarantine, and Digital Media

Abstract

Parasocial interaction, or the one-sided relationships individuals form with characters from television and other media, imparts many benefits to well-being. While engaging with media personalities is not true social interaction, the behavior can supplement real relationships in filling a person’s social needs, with positive outcomes. Such interaction can be helpful for individuals with social deficits, who may use parasocial relationships to compensate for social insufficiencies in their lives. While this type of compensation has typically been studied in the context of internal shortcomings, it likely also occurs when social deficits are invoked externally, such as through long-term work in remote areas or other instances of a physical nature. With the explosion of digital media in the last 25 years, opportunities to augment the fulfillment provided by real relationships with parasocialization have never been so great. Moreover, the recent COVID-19 quarantine greatly restricted real socialization. Those who live alone had email, phone, and video calls to sustain them, but virtually no physical contact if they abided quarantine rules. During this time, people appear to have relied on social media and binge-watching streamed series to give themselves a feeling of connection with others more than ever before. The effect of such social surrogacy during the quarantine is only one of many parasocial interaction topics that emerge in the wake of the first wave. This paper will review the relevant digital age literature on parasocial interaction and suggest several areas of exploration into the phenomenon contributed uniquely by the quarantine.