Parasocial relationships are relationships established between the persona of mass media and virtual social networks on the one hand, and individual interested members of the audience on the other hand, creating the illusion of a personal face-to-face relationship. This term was initially coined by anthropologist Donald Horton and sociologist Richard Wohl in 1956. In the digital era, with the emergence of virtual social networks and celebrity culture, these relationships have evolved and expanded to encompass new types of personas — influencers, and their followers. As virtual social networks are available via smartphones, which have become an integral part of everyday life, the formation of parasocial relationships is almost inevitable. The phenomenon itself has been researched in the context of sociology to a lesser extent compared to other branches of social sciences such as communication sciences, economics and psychology. The work aims to provide an overview of the existing theoretical and empirical knowledge about the phenomenon of parasocial relations in the world, as well as to draw the attention of Croatian sociology to the topic of parasocial relationships and to point out their prevalence and significance in contemporary societies. The paper provides a systematic review of previous theoretical works and research that dealt with the formation of parasocial relationships with media figures with an emphasis on virtual social networks, the interpretation of the contextual reasons behind this phenomenon, the analysis of possible positive and negative sides of parasocial relationships for different social groups, as well as consideration of the application of some elements of parasocial relationships in teaching methods at various educational levels.