Influencers perceived as digital super peers? Outcomes of adolescents’ use of social media influencers for socio-political information

Ellen Van Houtven & Desirée Schmuck

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication2026https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmag002article
AJG 3
Weight
0.37

What the paper says

Social media influencers (SMIs) are nowadays often adolescents’ main information source for socio-political topics, acting as an extension of young people’s real-life social network. To explain this phenomenon, we propose the novel concept of digital super peer (DSP) perceptions and study its consequences on adolescents’ peer discussions about socio-political topics and their attachment to influencers. This three-wave longitudinal survey with adolescents (12–16 years; NW1 = 1,419, NW2 = 1,019, NW3 = 799) found that adolescents who are more often exposed to socio-political content from their favorite influencer are more likely to ascribe DSP perceptions to them. While influencers seem to complement rather than replace peer group discussions about socio-political issues, our findings also point to some risks, both on the between- and within-person level: Adolescents who perceive SMIs as DSPs experience higher fear of missing out, which might be detrimental for their long-term well-being.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmag002

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@article{ellen2026,
  title        = {{Influencers perceived as digital super peers? Outcomes of adolescents’ use of social media influencers for socio-political information}},
  author       = {Ellen Van Houtven & Desirée Schmuck},
  journal      = {Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1093/jcmc/zmag002},
}

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Evidence weight

0.37

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.16 × 0.4 = 0.06
M · momentum0.53 × 0.15 = 0.08
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.