From: www.sfgate.com

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In the past seven months 2.5 million people have signed up to follow Kim Kardashian's tweets. Jon and Kate Gosselin are currently featured in hundreds of thousands of online articles. "Real Housewives" are the subject of conversation from coast-to-coast.

They're the new Paris Hiltons - famous more for their exploits and vivid loves lives than their accomplishments. And while you may not personally know or care about them, a healthy chunk of America does. We're a society that's increasingly fixated on the personal lives of notorious celebrities.

If you agree that social shifts reflect changing social needs - society's bottomless pit of interest in the drug problems, fashions, figures and love lives of celebrities must be satisfying a psychological need.