What are some ways which gossip can be harmful?

Question

Has anyone really hurt your feelings through gossip? Then protest against the harmful use of gossip by answering this question.

Answer 1

Gossip is the spoken or written transfer of innuendo or rumour loosely but almost never completely based on fact.

I don't know you, but if I were to suddenly appear in your town and started telling anyone that would listen that me and you had been sleeping together for the past three months and by the way you had also slept with two of my friends.

Obviously completely untrue.

But, there would be those in your community who would either believe it to be true, or see it as good "gossip" . Given time it would be all over town and your reputation would be trashed. That is without even considering what your partner would be thinking.

After all I'm a complete stranger why would I say such a thing unless it was the truth?

See where I'm going here?

Gossip to the perpetrator may be the innocent passing on of what they have heard. Add to this the "chinese whispers" effect and things suddenly become unrecognisable from the original.

Because gossip is rarely based on fact, there is no evidence that the victim of the gossip can put forward to refute what is in essence fiction. Hence it is unstoppable.

I imagine the example I give above would be extremely harmful, and you can transfer that to any subject matter you wish.... the outcome is the same.

To me gossip is the salvation for people who's lives are so deviod of anything worth talking about, that they need the constant feed of fictional information about others, and "be in on it" to make their own existence worthwhile.

Answer 2

I hate gossip, as you probably do, but I live in a small town, and the folks here do it for recreation!

I don't participate, but I know that everybody knows everything about eveyone, so people better not sin around here!

Litterally they go out of town to sin.

One of the primary functions is social inclusion and bonding that's essentially harmless.

This type of gossip is less about the person being gossiped about and more about the people gossiping.

They use gossip to bond together into a mini-social group. This type of gossip is about mutual sharing of information and is a form of relating to others.

By gossiping with them you show a certain level of trust and the development of a social connection.

It causes separation, ostracizing particular people from social circles. It causes hatred and anger.

It causes cliques and “we-hate so-and-so-clubs.” It causes divisions among people who are supposedly teaching that we are all One.

If we are all one, then no one should ever slander another, for then we are slandering our own self when we say something bad about someone else.

But there is an up-side. I know everybody in my town can give me a good recommendation!

How are we ever going to stop wars if we can not even get along?

Answer 3

Gossip can often turn into rumors, which can be harmful to one person's feelings.

Answer 4

transferring one issue to other person without any particular basis is very damaging to one's personality. It is a matter of giving wrong information to others.

many cases of passing issue from one to other, and the latter will relay to another one, will bring the issue in a different ways. It could be something added or something deducted. In this case, the real story totally changed from the reality.

Answer 5

Mud sticks! and if youre not there to tell ppl how it really is - theyre gonna want to think the worst