New Study Says People Obsessed with Celebrities Are Less Smart

A new Hungarian study claims that people obsessed with celebrities and celebrity culture are simply not smart. At all. In other words, if you always have to be up-to-date with the latest Kim Kardashian news, maybe you need a new hobby.

The study, published in BMC Psychology, states that “there is a direct association between celebrity worship and poorer performance on cognitive tests” measuring both literacy and numeracy.” Oh, oh.

In the study, 1,763 Hungarian adults were asked to take a 30-word vocabulary test and a digit symbol substitution test. Then, they were also asked to answer a “Celebrity Attitude Scale” questionnaire to find out how interested they were in famous people.

The Celebrity Attitude Scale had questions with “yes” or “no” answers such as, “If I were lucky enough to meet my favorite celebrity, and he/she asked me to do something illegal as a favor I would probably do it.” Another one: “I often feel compelled to learn the personal habits of my favorite celebrity” and “I am obsessed by details of my favorite celebrity’s life.”

According to the study, high scores on the Celebrity Attitude Scale correlated with lower performance on the cognitive ability tests. In other words, the most participants cared about famous people and celebrity culture, the worse they did on the tests that ranked their intelligence level. In addition to the tests, participants were asked to share their material wealth, income and levels of education.

If you’re reading this and freaking out, don’t. Researchers weren’t able to figure why people obsessed with celebrities did terribly on cognitive tests. Is it because they use their smarts to think about celebrities, or is it a because those obsessed with Hollywood were already less intelligent? Which came first- the chicken or the egg? So, don’t feel so badly about yourself. It could just be that you use your brain to think about the stars.