KEY POINTS:
Increasingly gossip is attracting the attention of researchers from psychology and sociology to history and communications as a global phenomenon.
It transcends race, cultural, gender and even age boundaries, and with modern technology can cross the globe in a split second.
And we all do it. We want to know which All Black hit his wife, which celebrity was doing drugs, and which one ran off with another's wife.
Cellphones and email have taken gossip far far away from wives chatting over the neighbour's fence, or men leaning on the bar.
Britons Bradley Chait and Claire Swire can testify to that.
When Swire sent Chait an email saying she enjoyed oral sex with him, he forwarded it to six friends with the message "now that's a nice compliment from a lass, isn't it".
Within a week it spread across the world, with the name of Chait's company attached, and had been read by an estimated 10 million people.
Years later, the case is still cited as an example of the embarrassment staff can cause their employers, let alone to their own lives.
Scholars agree that while gossip can destroy lives, it can also build relationships.
It is a social mechanism that lives, breathes and walks with us, they say. And being a busybody is an inherent human trait.
Massey University educational psychologist Dr Juliana Raskauskas says gossip is mostly prevalent among adolescent girls.
She attributes this to the increasing importance of peer relationship in that group.
"It is a good way to solidify a group of peers -- the 'clique' -- and gossip is a way to maintain that group's identity and group communication," she told NZPA.
"It is also good for self-esteem like 'I know something that you don't know', you even get that with adults."
But, Dr Raskauskas said, gossip also has a very negative connotation.
"We are speaking specifically about other people -- what may or may not be true," she said.
"Humans need to connect socially with other people, we need to be intimately connected with people we are sharing our secrets with and telling each other things that are important to us.
"The difference today is the mobility of gossip and its 24-hour access, access to infinitely more people, and to the modern generation."
She said mobile phones meant people kept in touch constantly.
"Cellphones are adolescents' most prized possession. They have them on them at all times and to not have them would be social exclusion and not be part of the on-going dialogue.
"It is a vital necessity for them but it has its social and psychological effects -- both positive and negative."
Gossip through cellphones allowed them to keep in touch and be updated on the latest goings on.
"In real time, you do not have to wait for some one to call you back. Also again the access is 24 hours a day, the expectation that you will get the immediate reply."
She said 20 per cent of her students used text messaging while she was teaching or talking to them.
"There are no strict rules. It has become intrusive and a 24 hour commitment."
Scholars say two-thirds of all conversation is gossip and this activity is essential to our social, psychological and physical well-being.
Auckland University associate professor Suchitra Mouly said gossip was a good ice-breaker in conversation and helped develop social relationships.
"Gossip is informal communication. It reflects social bonding," she said.
People regularly exchanged information that might not strictly be termed as formal communication.
Gossip had the potential to harm, could lower morale and undermine productivity, Dr Mouly said.
But it could also do good.
"It helps resolve conflicts. We define rumour and gossip as very similar to the grapevine in any organisation and it is an informal communication channel."
Gossip might be one vehicle through which individuals relieved tension and anxiety, she said.
It could also reflect deep-seated feelings of guilt and ambivalence, she said.
A recent study found that men gossiped as much as women, and tallied with work Dr Mouly had carried out on rumour and gossip in organisations.
"There are also some studies to show that women, usually in lower positions, might spread the news but they are not the creators of the gossip.
"They might get access to information and they propagate it but not create it. They are spreaders of gossip."
Men spent two thirds of their gossip talking about themselves, while women did only one third of the time, and women were more likely than men to be the subject of sexual gossip.
Harmful gossip was most likely to be committed by those whom the victim considered friends, than by strangers, Dr Raskauskas said.
"Student stories tell that some of the bullying and harassment that students are dealing with centres mainly on gossip."
Dr Mouly said harmful gossip was spread sometimes to malign somebody or to damage their reputation.
"There are some people who are political animals, like stirrers."
Negative information designed to smear personal reputations could quickly become established as "fact" if it was repeated often enough.
While gossip told a lot about the personality of the person who created it, it acted as a unifying force that communicated a group's moral code.
You heard it here first. Pass it on.
- NZPA
