Why Gen Z Is More Obsessed With Celebrities Than Any Other Age Group

A new study has found Generation Z is more obsessed with celebrities than their older counterparts.

The research discovered people between the ages of 18-24 became fixated with one or more celebrities at 12 times the rate of their parents' generation.

The report by The Mental Health Million Project at Sapien Labs, a not-for-profit organization based in the Washington D.C. area, surveyed 148,398 people from 19 English-speaking countries and found Gen Z living with debilitating obsessive and intrusive thoughts.

Many young people faced unwanted thoughts around their relationships with others, something negative that happened in the past or something negative that could happen in the future.

Social psychologist Ruth Sims from the University of Derby in England told Newsweek Gen Z was likely to be more obsessed with celebrities because it has unprecedented access to them compared to the generations before them.

"The difference these days... it is just the amount of information that's out there," Sims explained.

"Back in the day you'd have fan clubs for celebrities and they'd put out a magazine three times a year... and that was it, unless they [the celebrities] happened to be on the news or something that was as much as you found out."

But now celebrities have much more frequent exposure and direct contact with their fans through social media and the 24-hour news cycle, making it "easier to know every little detail of somebody's life," from what they had for breakfast or even what their bedroom looked like, according to Sims.

She mused that the more celebrities and influencers "feed their fans, the more their fans want to know."

Tara Thiagarajan, chief scientist at Sapien Labs, agreed.

"Older generations grew up with in-person social groups and celebrity information only available sporadically in print publications. The social frameworks they developed during childhood were therefore different which likely drove how they now interact with information about people on the internet," she told Newsweek.

Thiagarajan explained that as a result, older generations are usually better at making a "distinction between in-person and virtual relationships."

"The lack of strong in-person relationships coupled with the continuous stream of information about or from a celebrity on Instagram and social media may therefore make them more prone to obsessive behavior," she added about 18-24 year olds.

The risk of becoming obsessed with a celebrity also stems from the fact that "humans are generally quite nosy" and have a need for "social comparison."

Sims explained that "even if we realistically know we're never going to be like the Kardashians" we can ogle their lifestyles and possessions.

"The younger generations in particular spend so much of their time online and are sharing details of their own lives, whether it's on YouTube, TikTok or whatever," she said.

For young people it's natural to document and share most moments of their lives, and also track what other people are up to.

Fixating on celebrities also has a lot to do with the stage of someone's development and comes at a time for young people when they're discovering themselves and also pushing the boundaries of their known world.

Sims described it as a "perfect storm" between natural curiosity and what's going on in their bodies both emotionally and developmentally that can lead to an unhealthy obsession.

The academic warned parents not to interrogate or punish their children for the behavior, but rather to have conversations with them about the curated nature of social media.

"Just try to ground them a little bit in critical thinking," Sims suggested, further telling parents they could explain to their kids that while they might feel they know a celebrity well, they were only getting part of the story the celebrity wanted you to see.

Parents should talk with their children about filters, and also how celebrities and influencers are paid to endorse products online.

The research findings also help to give insight into mental health outcomes and could help parents understand their kids better, according to Thiagarajan.

"They [the findings] provide a view of the mental challenges that the younger generations are facing that are not typically considered in mental health assessments and in traditional mental health disorder paradigms," she said.

The researchers at The Mental Health Million Project found that Gen Z's dependence on social media to understand the world and interact with others was "exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic."

Gen Z was the first generation to grow up in a fully internet-connected world, which means most of their relationships play out online, rather than in person.

According to its research, the frequency of in-person socializing may have decreased by almost five times compared to their parents' generation.

The consequences of that is a likely "diminished capability for navigating social situations including appropriately interpreting the behavior of others, resolving conflict, and regulating social expectations."

Furthermore, increased online interaction leads to "distortion of the natural mechanisms of reciprocal human bonding."

Humans are designed to bond and interact with methods such as eye contact, body language mirroring, physical touch and even olfactory cues.

Without this learning, young people could become confused or experience unstable bonding in interpersonal relationship and is a likely explainer for the increase in celebrity obsessions.

Having insight into the life of someone you don't know physically can also lead to a distortion of the perceived connection you have with them.

Young people can feel they have bonded with their favorite celebrities simply because they follow them and know intimate details about their lives.

"One can get constant information about them with social media, which makes people feel they 'know' them," Thiagarajan said.

"People have a natural interest in the lives of others and coupled with factors like loneliness this can lead to fixations."