I initially arrived at this research topic when I was looking for research regarding child development. I have previously conducted research on the bilingual advantage in children which corroborated my interest in research regarding adolescent development. Parasocial relationships are a topic heavily researched in this area due to their impact on adolescent character and identity development; however, as I continued to research, I found that there was an overall lack in research regarding parasocial relationships in adults. 

As I continued reading previous literature, I found that such relationships became more abundant during the COVID-19 pandemic; however, they have continued into current society. Additionally, previous literature discusses the benefits and drawbacks of parasocial relationships, but it does not address how the drawbacks can be combatted. 

Thus, the first step to combatting the negatives of parasocial relationships including isolation in adults in through identifying the demographics of those who create such relationships before working to spread awareness. I initially planned on researching parasocial relationships in correlation to media addiction; however, media addiction can be subjective based on age and difficult to quantify. Therefore, I decided to study the overall awareness of parasocial relationships in young adults, but I soon realized that testing for awareness begins with identifying the demographics of those who create relationships before deciding who should be targeted when working to spread awareness. 

Through implementing revisions from the IRB, I changed my research to a method of quantitative analysis. By quantifying the strength of the parasocial relationships based on a point system, I can draw a correlation between age, gender, and ethnicity in relation to the quantitative strength of the parasocial relationship. Additionally, the survey will be sent out through snowball sampling to receive the most responses. Through these revisions, I finally came to the question of what demographics identify individuals who create parasocial relationships.