Social Media Usage, Parasocial Interactions and Existential Anxiety among Adolescents

Abstract

This study aimed to explore how social media use relates to parasocial interactions and existential anxiety in adolescents. It was hypothesized that there would be a connection between social media usage, parasocial interactions, and existential anxiety in this age group. To investigate this, a cross-sectional research design was implemented. Researchers used multistage sampling to select a sample of 700 students from private schools and colleges in the Gujranwala district of Punjab, Pakistan. Social Media Engagement Questionnaire (SMEQ) by Przybylski et al. (2013), the Celebrity Persona Parasocial Interaction Scale (CPPI) by Bocarnea (2007) and the Existential Anxiety Questionnaire (EAQ) by Weems et al. (2004) were used for data collection. Correlation and regression analyses were performed, using SPSS Version 24 for statistical analysis. The Cronbach alpha showed that social media has a positive correlation with parasocial interaction (r = .36, p < .01), while social media usage do not show a significant relationship with existential anxiety (r = .01, p ˃ .01). Further, parasocial interaction was negatively correlated with existential anxiety (r = –.09, p < .05). Regression analysis result shown that social media usage significantly predicts parasocial interaction F (1, 698) = 102.58, p < .001, and have 13% of the variance (R² = .13). In contrast, social media engagement did not significantly predict existential anxiety, F (1, 698) = 0.12, p = .73, R² = .00. However, parasocial interaction was a significant negative predictor of existential anxiety, F (1, 698) = 5.50, p = .019, accounting for less than 1% of the variance (R² = .008). It was concluded that social media usage was related to parasocial interaction and increase in parasocial interaction leads to decrease the existential anxiety. The results of this study add in comprehending these phenomena among Pakistani adolescents, highlighting the impact of social media usage on parasocial interactions and existential anxiety.