Gossiping - Gossiping - for some it’s an attitude, for some it’s a mere hobby and for some, it’s a lifestyle. Let’s admit it – gossiping is everywhere. It’s the favorite national pastime, nothing short of a collective sport. Gossip continues to invade our domestic and social lives. Rising from its primeval depths, gossip is consuming up the edifice of our culture, its refinement, sensible conversation and sensibilities; while leaving behind a pile of innuendoes, slanders and half truths.

The effects of gossips can be far reaching, permanent and far more destructive than what we ever imagine before opening our big mouths. An old Yiddish folk tale can illustrate the damage that gossip is capable of causing. In the fable, a woman who had been gossiping about the rabbi in her village had a change of heart and went to the rabbi to confess her misbehavior. She begged for his forgiveness, which he gave on one condition. He told her to take her best feather pillow to the top of a nearby hill, tear the pillow open, and scatter its feathers to the wind. Then, the rabbi told her to go and gather every single feather. Such is the widespread effect of the words we say – the words which control us, rather than being the other way around. Both in Christianity and Islam, gossip mongers, whisperers and tale bearers have been defined as people who eat their own brother’s flesh piecemeal.

Gossiping is a whole phenomenon. Gossip mongers are ordinary people who have idle hands and minds, over-active imaginations and busy tongues. Gossiping is much less like a game of Chinese Whispers, only that it has far more destructive potential and long term harmful effects. What is perhaps far more dangerous is gossip’s potential to draw you in. Unintentionally, we become a subtle part of the gossiping crowd, by virtue of adding a word here or subtracting one there. This applies to gossipers who do not spread outright lies, but who distort the truth - depicting a person's faults without mentioning their virtues, and ascribing the worst possible motive to any word or deed, etc. Many of us like to believe that "just listening" to gossip is not really as bad as spreading it - which isn’t so. By allowing someone to gossip in front of us, we are in a way encouraging them. Also, something doesn't have to be a lie in order to become a gossip. Many of us think, "Well, if it’s the truth then why not share it with whosoever we want!" This isn’t so! Telling the truth for the wrong motive can be even more destructive than telling a lie. In fact, here's a definition of gossip that's quite revealing: "Sharing anything about some one, when the act of sharing it is not part of the solution to that person's problem."

Gossiping is usually justified under a neighborly and ‘concerned’ guise, which is a sham. Most of the gossip is personal and should not be spread around in social groups. There are 3 primary social groups we usually belong to on the basis of our interaction. They are:

The Domestic Group i.e. the people with whom we live.
Work Group i.e. the place where we work.
The Societal Group i.e. the circle in which we move around and people we hang out with.

Gossiping in the Domestic Group: Although with the rise of the nucleus family system as opposed to the joint family system, gossiping has subsided in the domestic group.
However gossiping can still occur when spouses tend to confide in each other or exchange news regarding the societal and work groups they respectively belong to. Ideally speaking, keeping no secrets from your spouse is a fair practice, but betraying somebody else’s trust for this sake isn’t that fair. It is a very common practice in our society to gossip in front of our children, thus setting a bad example. This usually happens when couples don’t put aside much time for themselves and try to catch up with each others’ life on the breakfast table.

The temptation for gossiping starts young and schoolers want to repeat stories they’ve heard from parents and friends in front of each other. Children gossip for many reasons, such as for the need to feel superior, to feel like part of the group, for attention and for control or power. Children may also spread rumors about other children out of jealousy, spite, need for revenge and even out of boredom. Once this habit is developed, it becomes hard to move past this stage and it is usually carried on in adulthood. Gossiping children turn into gossiping teens and finally into gossiping adults.

Parents must realize that a child’s formative years are definitely of immense important. When parents teach their children not to lie and steal, they should also instruct their children against subtle vices of characters such as gossiping. It is for this reason it becomes equally important that as parents, we should practice ourselves whatever we try to preach our children.

Gossiping in the Work Group: This is one place where gossiping is least expected but ironically enough, even a work place is no longer immune of gossip. Faulkner, the eminent American novelist spoke the truth when he said: "One of the saddest things is that the only thing a man can do for eight hours, is work. You can't eat eight hours a day, nor drink for eight hours a day, nor make love for eight hours." And since work alone can’t entertain people for long, hence they gossip to kill the time.

At work, people tend to gossip mostly about higher ups and coworkers in connection to money, relationships and power struggles. There are various reasons for the presence of gossip in the work group. One of the main reasons people gossip is that they want to be ‘seen, known or acknowledged’. They don’t want to be left out of the ‘information loop’. It gives them a misleading sense of power and control. Gossip is also seen as a means for bonding, a sense of belonging and affirmation as it supports their ‘Us vs. Them’ perspective. While some use it to be devious and manipulative and to demonstrate power, there are still others who use the office grapevine to vent complaints about their colleagues. Coworkers also tend to gossip when they feel bored or too secure in their jobs, thus they exchange gossips in order to break the monotony at work.
There is a division of opinion, amongst experts as far as the theory of office management is concerned. Studious managers can either use the power of the grapevine to informally handle or curb issues in the making, or they can use it as a manipulative tool by pitting co-workers against each other.

According to management consultant Joan Lloyd: "Gossip can become a way of life in an organization where there are wide chasms between hierarchies or between departments. In most cases, gossip is a symptom of missing information, misunderstandings, or hidden feelings."

On the other hand, Phillip Gay, a sociology professor at San Diego State University, is of the opinion that if the gossip is not of malicious nature, then it can actually help co-workers in bonding. According to Professor Phillip: "People get to know each other through gossip. They can express their values and opinions. Gossip is a way of introducing yourself to other people."

All and all, even though gossiping may seem like a fun way to pass the day at work but it can have serious repercussions for both you and your colleagues. Co-workers who give in to the temptation to gossip deal more with the painful fallout than the marginal benefits, if any at all. Idle gossiping also speaks volumes about the gossip mongers’ state of mind, choices and effectiveness at work.

There are still better ways to get to know friends and co-workers. If we want to be known by them, we can introduce ourselves directly to them. It is unlikely that anything instructive or constructive come from sessions of idle chattering. If you’re prone to gossiping yourself, then you can always expect it to come around and bite you back. There can be serious repercussions of betraying secrets at work that can come in form of fallouts, ex-communication, demotion and even termination.

Gossiping in the Societal Group: This group comprises of our friends and the peer with whom we choose to interact on a regular basis. When people get together it is natural for them to talk, share and to catch up on NEWS. Unfortunately people have forgotten the distinction between news and gossip. Anything that concerns the personal and private life of another person can surely not be regarded as news. This catching up session has a very high and likely tendency of turning into gossip, rumor and innuendo. There are numerous examples: a bored house housewife trashes her in-laws in front of another. It is also common for housewives to gossip about the soap operas they are watching on the cable. These soaps appeal to them as they are reflective of the household politics and skirmishes that they encounter in their common day life. Do these soaps really have a reformative value? It’s a point to ponder upon. But the thought that gossiping is merely a woman’s trait is misleading, as men gossip equally well. Men spill the beans about each others in social gatherings and parties or they like to have inane discussions about the prevailing political situation.

What contributes to gossip most is our disregard for the consequences once we decide to open our big mouths, and people with big mouths always have small minds and IQ levels lower than the room temperature. A casual conversation has a dangerous tendency of turning into gossip. You must have heard this saying many times: "Small minds talk about people; mediocre minds talk about events; great minds talk about ideas." Gossiping stands in exact opposition to this adage. People who gossip are the kind of people who talk about other people, events or notions that involve other people, as against concrete and constructive ideas.

Gossip, Culture and Media - a Trilogy!
The rise of the gossip culture means the decline of seriousness. Seriousness doesn’t mean high riding literalness or the humorless stoicism, it means the orientation of the culture; sobriety, reflection, the philosophical view concerned with the larger picture of life. Media is merely an image of who we are. It is a reflection of what we like to listen and watch in the privacy of our homes, how we interact and what we talk about our day to day lives. Speaking of media, it’s the lack of concrete ideas that makes me wary of the plethora of talk shows on the ever sprouting news channels.

There are shows that discuss international events and geopolitical scenario in the name of awareness, which is anything but gossip; but nevertheless is talk against talk. And seriously, how much these shows contribute to our consciousness as a nation is for me to question and you to decide. The most popular category is of talk shows related to showbiz and entertainment. These types of talk shows and gossip columns thrive primarily on gossip, sensationalism and meaningless innuendoes. Gossip’s gone-nuclear sibling is ‘Scandal’, which thrives on media as well as technology. These channels exhibit our "meditation" on gossip and scandal; and in particular to gossip and scandal that relate to public figures with whom we have no direct relation, no influence or control. Even a large part of our politics and sports thrive on dissection and tearing down of character and personal choices. A perfect example of this is Imran Khan the sportsman turned politician. If the media of yesteryear used to zoom down on his love life and subsequent marriage with passion, today’s media’s overt interest in his recent divorce yet again shows that the media hasn’t lost any of its candor for gossip. Media’s potential as a medium to inform, educate and entertain can get displaced easily, contemporary examples of which are the Jerry Springer show and the British tabloids and the Paparazzis. In the mindlessness of "entertainment" what are we trying to say to others, to ourselves and to our children? Mindlessness should no longer be excused in the name of entertainment; it cripples the mind and soul. In today’s world thoughtfulness is what is required.

Another burgeoning genre of talk shows is that of social nature, where lies a massive potential of social awareness and more importantly, instruction. However, this medium is rather strictly dictated by our censor policies and red tapism and our own conventional social sensibilities. These shows concern serious issues such as incest, rape, corruption, morally licentious activities. These are burning issues, nevertheless media is required to handle these issues with utmost care because there are sensitivities involved. I cannot help but recalling a particular episode of a program called 50 Minutes on a popular satellite channel (GEO). Some times back an episode was aired on 50 Minutes regarding the secret lives of cyber cafés in Rawalpindi city. The program subsequently generated a sprawling debate on the leading forum ‘Aurora Talk’ related to media and advertising. Almost all the forum members agreed that such social issues should definitely be raised on a social platform for the sake of public awareness, yet the intricacies and sensitivities involved in such issues should never be undermined for the sake of gaining viewers or readership. Debating a case on a mass medium should not be without concern and respect for the sentiments of families involved, as the repercussions of this case already involve; one incident of honor killing, two suicides, three divorces and much much more. As an enlightened society, we need to elevate our personal values and yet at the same time we need to judge information without feeling threatened by it.

One cannot help but deplore how technology is being used as an aid to spread gossip mongering. E-mails, chat and video conferencing are used as a means to spread gossip, scandals, slander and levity. If you thought that having your Inbox infiltrated with porn and spam in the name of Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton etc. wasn’t enough, then the above mentioned cyber café incident closer to home is a rude wake up call. The knowledge that the copies of the particular CD that have already made a round in Dubai, Britain, US, France and Germany can still be bought from certain video shops - talk about our society’s morally depraved sensibilities and appetite. Isn't this what media and technology sometimes end up doing, sort through the debris of other people's lives in search of delectable material, as against their primary function of educating, informing and entertaining? By considering this underbelly of information, can't we discern what really matters to people—their values, their fears, the condition of their lives? Should one end up exploiting them instead of reassuring them?

People end up on both sides of this phenomena and neither side is good. It owes to the simple fact that what goes around also comes around. The person who is going to talk about someone in front of you, is most likely to talk about you in front of someone else. The vicious cycle will continue until all gossip ceases or people learn to mind their own business and respect personal boundaries. Conclusively speaking, gossip is one of the few things in life of which it can truly be said that none at all is better than some.