Read the following passage about the PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer s...

Read the following passage about the PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 31 to 40.

Today, many teenagers develop strong emotional feelings for celebrities, influencers, and fictional characters they see online. These one-way connections are called parasocial relationships, and they are becoming more common because of social media. Young people often feel these media figures are like real friends, even though they have never met. During the teenage years, when young people are discovering who they are, these connections can affect how they see themselves and what they believe in. [I] However, when teenagers spend too much time thinking about these media figures, they may lose touch with reality and forget about their real friends and family.

Parasocial relationships can be both helpful and harmful for teenagers' mental health. On the good side, following someone who talks openly about mental health problems or difficult experiences can make teens feel less alone. [II] On the bad side, becoming too obsessed with a celebrity might lead to feelings of loneliness, low confidence, and worries about body image. When teens use too much time and energy on media figures, they might ignore their schoolwork and real friendships.

Doctors and therapists are starting to pay more attention to these online connections when they work with teenage patients. Research in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry suggests that mental health professionals should elicit information from teens about which influencers they follow, how strongly they feel about them, and whether these relationships help or hurt their daily life. [III] Learning about a patient's parasocial relationships can help doctors understand how teenagers deal with stress and whether they are at risk of problems like staying away from others or seeing harmful content online.

[IV] When therapists understand teenagers' parasocial relationships, they can better help young people stay mentally healthy. By recognizing which connections are positive and which ones might be causing problems, doctors can use the good relationships as helpful tools while working to fix the unhealthy ones. This way of looking at parasocial bonds helps healthcare workers guide teenagers toward better habits with social media while making sure they still build real friendships that are important for growing up healthy.

https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/al

Question 31: The phrase “lose touch with reality” in paragraph 1 has the closest meaning to _________.

A. drift away from                        B. catch up with                                C. look up to                                D. carry on with