You Didn't Hear This From Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip

by Kelsey McKinney

There is evidence that women gossip more than men. And there are differences in their subjects. Men, research has found, are more likely to gossip about larger systems and famous people (sports, politics, and so on), and women are more likely to gossip about others in their social group. A study out of the University of California, Riverside, found that while women gossip more than men, most of that gossip is neutral, information-sharing gossip. A study of five teenage girls (granted, a limited study) whose conversations were recorded over a twelve-month period found that 65 percent of their conversations were gossip segments. “The girls were able to manage gossip topics in a way that is similar to older adults. However, one noticeable difference is that the girls appeared to be less certain about their beliefs regarding some of the issues discussed,” the study noted. The teenage years are a liminal period of learning. You feel like an adult, or at least I did, and it is only after you become an actual adult that you realize how young you really were. The gossiping that teens do, then, is constructive learning; they are trying to understand how to communicate about the world around them so that they might become adults.