Wellbeing and Parasocial Communication

Lauren E Sheehan

University of South Florida

COM 2000: Intro to Communications

Dr. Laurel Friedman

March 26, 2023

 Health and well-being combine a person's mental, emotional, and physical health. It is

substantial that those seeking and needing help get the proper care they need. One way to ensure

healthy lives and well-being for all ages starts with communication. Communication is one of the most

essential parts of our lives. It is an everyday process therefore, communicating effectively and efficiently

can help strengthen trust to engage those needing assistance. Thankfully, as time progresses,

communication has become faster and more assessable. One of the primary sources people can

communicate with each other is through parasocial communication. Parasocial communication is a one-

sided relationship in which a person uses their time and energy for another party. This type of

communication has been on the rise as social media soars. It has given us a new and different way of

communicating with our peers, for example, TikTok. Many TikTok creators use their platform for

entertainment, but some use it to spread global goal awareness. One TikTok user, Leana Deeb, uses her

voice to spread awareness about one of the significant Global Goals, mental health and well-being.

Through short video clips, she utilizes her platform to communicate, promote, create, and support good

health in many conversational ways. Her videos use a plethora of conversational tools to communicate

appropriately and advocate for healthy lifestyle habits.

Leana Deeb utilizes TikTok to communicate positive life goals and habits. The primary purpose

she makes in her video is for others to incorporate these habits into her viewers' lives. She does this to

achieve the third Global Goal, which is to accomplish universal health, reduce illness, reduce mortality

from non-communicable diseases, and promote mental health (The Global Goals). Deeb uses many

communication techniques to analyze by utilizing symbols to communicate meaning. She starts off

communicating by using her voice through a channel. Floyd (2022) states that a channel is "a type of

pathway for conveying messages" (p.9). The channel she used is TikTok, one of the fastest-growing

social media platforms, with nearly 700 million monthly users worldwide (Georgiev, 2023). Deeb takes

advantage of TikTok’s growth and utilizes this major communication platform, social media, which is
based on building conversation, a community, and connecting with an audience. It builds relationships.

Therefore, by using this type of channel, Deeb communicates her healthy habits through mass

communication. As social media grows so does mass communication. Mass communication can be

among those who entertain or engage with a larger audience of people they usually don't know

personally (Floyd, 2022, p.17). This use of a channel is an upcoming and intelligent way to spread

awareness about mental health and well-being, as she does. Using TikTok in this way, Deeb can reach

many people promptly.

Utilizing these strategies, she promotes five positive habits she has learned herself and turns

them around to teach and share with others. She does this by recording herself using the five positive

habits she has created for her life. As she is doing this, she uses nonverbal communication. She utilized

nonverbal communication through electronically mediated graphics, the App TikTok. To show, Deeb

makes a TikTok video of herself without saying words. In her TikTok, she lets her behavior, actions, and

characteristics give the audience enough information to convey the meaning she is trying to portray

(Floyd, 2022, p. 120). For example, she shows herself in the gym, writing down positive affirmations,

practicing self-love, and creating and exploring healthy foods; however, she does use text to accompany,

clarify, and reinforce her ideas. Of course, when using nonverbal communication, essential elements

such as chronemics and Vocalics must be used to translate the digital pictograms. To show, as Deeb

makes her video, she uses the Chronemic technique, which is the use of time. Many TikTok videos range

from fifteen seconds to one minute, meaning she must strategically plan her videos to be able to

communicate her thoughts properly and timely. The proper use of time can affect lifestyles, agendas,

and encourages audiences to stay engaged.

To break down further, Deeb uses Vocalics, which Floyd (2022) claims to be characteristics of

the voice that communicates meaning (131). Although Deeb used nonverbal communication, she used

uplifting music throughout her video. It is important that Deeb choice of music is appropriate to
accompany her actions throughout the video. She must understand and choose the correct music by its

rate, pitch, and volume to match the message she is trying to convey. Since Deeb chooses positive and

motivational music is clear that she understands that listening to music can heighten positive emotion

through the reward centers of our brain (Suttie, 2015). Using this vocalic technique further engages her

audience and motivates them to start incorporating her positive habits. Another communication skill

Deeb uses is cognitive complexity. For example, she lists five habits for others struggling with health and

well-being. Listing multiple ideas is a good foundation for others to pick up at least one or two habits to

incorporate into their life. It communicated that Deeb understands everyone lives different lives. One

idea is not going to work for everyone. Therefore, giving multiple healthy habits for viewers to add into

their lives gives people some sort of flexibility and a range of opportunity to make positive lifestyle

changes. According to Floyd (2022), this shows that Deeb can understand people's situations in multiple

ways (p.5). It gives everyone the opportunity to incorporate a habit into their life.

Additionally, TikTok has become a platform of choice for younger people. It has become an

apparent issue that young adults risk getting false and disinformed information. Luckily for Deeb, she

has been on TikTok for many months and has over twelve million followers. Her content is based on

physical and mental health and improvement. She even has created and released personal training

workout programs, healthy food plans, and recipes. Doing so makes her content credible. She has made

it apparent in her TikTok account that the five healthy life habits she presented are not hoagie and that

she does utilize these habits in her everyday life. Since she is very familiar with these topics it allows her

audience to trust her and her positive life goal habits. Lastly, Deeb can take criticism and utilize civil

dialogue. She shows herself praying in one of the last clips of her five positive habits video. She

understands that some of her viewers may not have the same views as hers or pray to the same god,

but she decides to incorporate this positive habit to display diversity and culture. In fact, after looking

through her comments under her video she values that the word culture may have a different meaning
to some. She values culture as learned, shared symbols, values, and norms and understands that some

may be different from each other (Floyd, 2022, p.34). This stuck out because it gave her credibility and

encouraged other viewers to stick to their religious goals. Not only that, but she also doesn't force

religion. Her ability to do this shows she can give and have honest, authentic, and respectful

conversations even with those with deep-seated disagreement (Floyd, 2022, p.112). She understands

and communicates that others may have different religious and nonreligious viewpoints but decides to

include this habit to include an array of ideas that may help someone with their health and well-being.

To wrap up, it is important that your well-being and health, which is a combination of

someone’s emotional, physical, and mental health, is taken care of. Thankfully as we progress in time,

new technologies through social media and parasocial communication have become easier. People have

turned to social media platforms to spread awareness to achieve global goals. As we’ve seen, the TikTok

user Leana Deeb, has committed to the global goal of improving health and well-being. She has made

getting the proper help and tools you need more assessable and ready to apply to her viewers’ lives. To

do this she has been able to communicate through parasocial communication, which as we know is an

upcoming and vastly growing social media platform. She utilized the platform TikTok to channel and

promote positive lifestyle habits. She communicated, promoted, and aided healthy lives and mental

health by strategically sharing five positive life habits she incorporated into her life. To communicate

these goals properly, she utilized communication techniques. Techniques such as nonverbal

communication, mass communication, chronemic techniques, channel, credibility, civil dialogue, and

many others. Acting upon this issue and using these communication tools allows her viewers to become

engaged and motivated to implement some, if not all, of her healthy lifestyle habits, which overall can

help the global goal to be improved.