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Joshua Meyrowitz, a professor of communications, studied the effects of mass media on people. In his article, “The Separation of Social Space From Physical Place”, Meyrowitz explains that electronic media takes away from the physical location of things. However, it encourages the idea of para-social relationships. This is the idea that people form relationships with other people, usually celebrities, who do not even know they exist. A person who engages themselves in a parasocial relationship, become so involved in that persons life, they begin to think they are close friends, without even ever having a face to face conversation with them. One example of someone engaged in a parasocial relationship is Mary Dyck. Mary was a Kansas farm wife living in the 1930’s. She lived a very isolated life, in a quiet town and was always very lonely. She depended on the soap operas of the FM radio to entertain her daily. These soap operas became her form of escape from the real world. Mary became so attached to the soap operas that she started writing about the characters and what happened on the episodes in her diary, as if they were her real friends. Mary was able to create relationships with these characters, without ever physically being with them.

Another area about parasocial relationships that is more common and well known is Twitter. Twitter is an electronic medium where people update what they are doing at that current moment. These people can “follow” other Twitter users and look at what they are doing at that given moment. Twitter allows people to no longer need physical place setting for social communications. By updating what you are doing at any given moment, you are allowing for the chance of a parasocial relationship. This is because people can see all of what you are going, without you really even knowing who is looking. These people read little pieces of your life, or anyone else’s repeatedly. Eventually it will create your life story and people will become closer to you. It is like the thought of becoming intimate with millions of people. The communication medium Twitter also portrays the idea of ambient awareness. This is being physically near someone and picking up the mood they are in, through the little things they do. However, instead of being physically near the person, you are just viewing their page and are able to see how they are feeling. The thought of people who do not even know you, being able to know whatever you write about yourself, is quite scary. In fact, you can become so connected to people by the updates that you get to know them better than your own family. Because of Twitter and other electronic communication mediums, we have all lost privacy. They allow information to be readily available for anyone at any moment, so long as you write it.