Celebrities more influential than historical figures: Study

LONDON: Celebrities like actress Angelina Jolie, football star David Beckham and singer Kylie Minogue are more influential than historical figures, a new study has revealed.

A researcher from the University of Leicester's Department of Media and Communication found that historical figures like Winston Churchill, William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton are less important for today's youth than today's celebrities, reports contactmusic.com.

Charlotte de Backer's study revealed that the high level of publicity of famous celebrity couples makes them "teachers" of the youth.

She said: "Humans seem to have the tendency to mimic the overall behavioural pattern of those who have a higher status or are more successful than others. This explains why celebrities act as role models for a broad range of behaviour they display - good or bad."

De Backer also found that older people are more interested in celebrities for purely social reasons and not because they really care about Lohan's rehab stint or Spears' confrontation with paparazzi.

She added: "We did find in the interviews that older people do not gossip about celebrities as much because they want to learn from them or feel befriended with them, but they use celebrity gossip to bond with real-life friends and acquaintances.

"Living in scattered societies we often don't know who to talk about with the many people we know and celebrities can act as our mutual friends and acquaintances."