I’m not gossiping, I’m just checking the facts

I don’t gossip. I want to make that very clear from the beginning. Of course, I sometimes share useful information about people who are not present, but you may agree with me that this is okay.
I may also pass on something interesting that someone told me in confidence, but only to one or two people I trust. And maybe they tell one or two people they also trust.
That is not gossip but a problem with the meaning of the word 'secret'. Come on, guys! Having a larger audience doesn’t make the secret any less safe.
I rarely meet anyone who admits to gossiping. Apparently, millions of people gossip, but none of them are people we know. The rest of us simply “share information” or “show concern”. I become worried when I hear myself say, “I don’t gossip, but...” The word but is usually where my good behaviour ends.
A study by psychologists Megan Robbins and Alexander Karan at the University of California, Riverside, looked at 467 people. Published in Social Psychological and Personality Science in 2019, researchers sampled their real conversations and estimated that people spent about 52 minutes every day talking about someone who was not there. Almost an hour a day! Quite an achievement for something nobody seems to do.
Even more surprising, about three-quarters of the gossip was neutral. Women gossiped more overall, but mainly in a neutral way and were not more likely than men to spread negative gossip.
Younger people did more negative gossip than older people. So gossip welcomes everybody. Finally, something bringing humanity together.
Another study of 460 people, published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2019 by Terence Dores Cruz and colleagues from universities in the Netherlands and Italy, examined why we gossip. Reasons included enjoyment, getting information, checking whether something is true, protecting others and getting something off our chest.
I particularly like “checking whether something is true”. It sounds very professional. When I ask, “Really? What happened next?”, I am not being nosy but just checking the facts. Somebody has to do it.
Another experiment, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B in 2021 by researchers Flóra Samu and Károly Takács, found that people used about 87 per cent of the opportunities they were given to share information about others. About 46 per cent of the gossip was positive, 30 per cent neutral and 23 per cent negative.
Researchers also say gossip can bring people closer. When someone tells me, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” I immediately feel important. I have been chosen to receive top-secret information, so naturally, I would listen more carefully, as it would be rude not to.
Gossip may also have helped our ancestors. By talking about others, they could learn who was trustworthy, who was helpful and who should be avoided, especially the person who disappeared when there was work to do and returned when the food was ready. I find this comforting because maybe I am not gossiping but just continuing an ancient human survival skill.
Of course, gossip can also hurt. Stories can be wrong or exaggerated. “He arrived late once” can leave home in the morning and return in the evening as “He has never arrived on time in his life.” Give it another day, and he may never have been to work at all.
Naturally, I find all this research fascinating until the gossip is about me.
The moment someone says, “Apparently people are talking about you,”I suddenly become a different person as privacy becomes extremely important, facts must be checked and evidence must be produced. Why can’t people simply mind their own business? It is amazing how quickly my moral standards improve when my own name enters the conversation.
I am hesitant to say that gossip can inform us, protect us, bring us closer and entertain us. But it can also hurt someone who is not there to explain what happened.
The best questions I think are: Is it true? Why am I sharing it? Could it hurt someone? And would I still say it if that person suddenly walked into the room?
As for me, I still don’t gossip. I just thought you should know all this. And please, don’t tell anyone I told you.