Happy Christmas Eve! As you gather with friends and family, I feel like this is a very relevant topic.

Gossip has got a bad reputation as a very negative and destructive pastime. However, there are some very good reasons why gossip is a common pastime!

When you gossip with someone, you learn more about the other person through what they are saying about someone else. If you haven’t spoken to them in years, talking about mutual acquaintances is a great way to create trust and get to know the other person.

For a socially awkward person like me, you learn what is appropriate or ‘normal’ through gossip. Sure, gossip encourages conformity, but to smooth social interactions you need some sort of mutual understanding.

Gossiping is a pretty straightforward way of comparing yourself with others, which is an important way of assessing how well we’re doing despite self-help resources telling us not to.

So what do you think of gossip? Is it important to society? Is it destructive? Let me know in the comments!