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By kilax, January 7, 2010 4:56 am

Gossiping. We all do it from time to time. It’s so fun, yet so wrong… right?

There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday – “Killing Gossip with Kindness.” The article discussed methods teachers are using to quell student gossiping, rampant gossiping on the internet, and the merit of gossiping.

Quelling Gossiping in Schools

A teacher quoted in the article said kids today seem more sarcastic than past generations. She suggests to students that before saying something about someone else, to ask themselves, “Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?“

What a great triad of questions to remember. It seems obvious to think through these questions before you open your mouth, but of course, we don’t. And while I have to say – I think many kids are just MEAN – I believe this exercise would be helpful and develop good habits.

Rampant Gossiping on the Internet

The article mentions the plethora of gossip online, and how it can permanently tarnish your image – because it’s online forever. We bloggers are familiar with this. People seem to be apt to say things online, behind the safety of a computer screen, that they would NEVER say in real life.

Professor Daniel Solove*, who wrote a book about internet gossip, was quoted:

Given the times we live in, he says it can’t hurt to reinforce in our children the need to ask: “Is it kind? True? Necessary?” But he suspects that “we can’t make people nicer. So we need to keep pushing legal consequences.” He advocates the strengthening of laws against Internet irresponsibility, arguing that the specter of being sued is the best weapon to slow down malicious gossip.

Can you imagine being sued for what you say online? That seems like an invasion of freedom of speech, but hey, it wouldn’t surprise me.

The Merit of Gossiping

To me, the most interesting part of the article was the section with quotes from Professor Susan Hafen**. She argues for gossiping:

In her research, she has found that workplace gossip often serves a positive function. For instance, it helps people conform: When we gossip about someone who got fired, we learn what happens to people who break the rules.

At the same time, gossip is a social interaction. “Is it kind? Is it necessary? Those are good questions,” says Dr. Hafen. “But it would be a boring world if we always had to tiptoe around, being kind. For one thing, we wouldn’t be able to tell any jokes.”

More seriously, she says, prohibiting gossip that isn’t “kind” may be a way of “avoiding unpleasantness, of fence-sitting, of not rocking the boat. If we only tell kind stories about people, then we may be avoiding holding people responsible for their actions.”

That last sentence quoted is what I struggle with – keeping my mouth shut and letting other people get away with irresponsible behavior. No matter how hard you try to communicate your concern, it can still be perceived as an attack to the person, rather than a discussion of their actions (or lack thereof).

What do you think of the article? Are you going to ask yourself “Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?” Are internet laws against gossiping appropriate? Is there merit to gossiping? Do you think you need to cut back on gossiping? (please comment on what particularly interests you from the article!)

Overall, I can say I gossip much less than I used to, and that is a direct reaction to the work environment I entered in December of 2008. But, there ARE people who irk me the wrong way, ALL THE TIME, and boy, does Steven get to hear it. I make a conscious effort to try to say some nice things about them from time to time as well, but yeah, not all the time. I am going to start asking myself the three questions.

Bonus Question: Have you ever tried to remain neutral when with a group of people who are gossiping?

I have. You don’t say anything and they get VERY upset. It makes them feel bad. I’ve been in this situation a lot.

*From George Washington University Law School.
**A professor of communication at Webster State University in Ogden, Utah.

Comments (15)

By kilax, November 9, 2009 5:22 am

… to ask the neighbor kids to stop hanging on the tree in our yard and breaking the young branches off?

… to ask the neighbor kids to quit playing IN THE STREET and yelling at cars?*

… to ask the neighbor kids to stop scratching on the back of the large residential mailbox with sticks?

I am not a parent. So, parents, ANYONE in fact, please call me out if there is any reason why I should just let these kids do their own thing.

I just wonder… why do their parents not worry about them playing in the street? Or defacing public property? Or ruining our already pathetic looking neighborhood trees?

Why do I have to be the neighborhood bitch?**

*One time, Steven bribed them to get out of the street by giving them fresh cookies.
**We’ve had to ask these particular neighbors, and others, unfortunately, to please turn down the loud music they blast out of their open garages in the middle of the night.

Comments (22)

By kilax, August 25, 2009 8:13 pm

Does it make anyone else CRAZY when you walk up to your car* in a parking lot and find some random flier under the windshield wiper?

This drives me absolutely mad, but I’ve talked to a few people who it doesn’t seem to bother at all. Take my crazy mother for example. She actually said, “I like it when people put fliers on my car. It makes me feel special.” But then after I argued with her for a bit about it she said it would upset her if she had a new car like me (My mom is still driving some car she won in the 80s).

And someone else told me it doesn’t bother them – they just take it off and put it on the car next to theirs, hoping they will recycle it. (Who said this to me?! Please reveal yourself! I cannot remember!)

I think it bothers me so much because it is a HUGE waste of paper, and results in a lot of littering. AND, I am very VERY unlikely to use the services of someone if their method of advertisement is a flier on my CAR.

And, I don’t like the idea of anyone touching my car. The lot I park my car in to ride the train is in a pretty shady area. My old car got keyed there, and last year I arrived to find someone’s glass busted out of their car. I made sure to have special vandalism insurance on my new car. I am just waiting for the day I walk out to it and find something wrong with it.

Anyway, if there is someone out there who is not annoyed by finding fliers under their car windshield wiper, please feel free to argue with me! Or agree if it makes you crazy too!

*Or your theoretical car, if you don’t have one.

Comments (22)

By kilax, June 18, 2009 6:20 am

The other day, I was trying to describe a characteristic of someone who was (is) driving me nuts to Steven. But I couldn’t quite get it right. Of course, when listening to Jillian Michael’s 6/14 podcast yesterday, she explained it precisely. She said:

Surround yourself with positive people. Hang out with people that are focusing on a solution, not a problem. Hang out with people that are proactive, NOT victims.

Jillian was talking about this in the context of health, how hanging around people like this can discourage you from reaching your own health goals, but it is amazing how it applies to so many other aspects of life.

It’s the whole “focusing on a solution, not a problem” part. I am totally one for bitching and letting out steam, but it seems some people have a hard time getting past that point and getting things DONE. These people tend to dwell in how “bad” things are, and just get themselves more and more worked up, making it harder to get closer to a solution.

From time to time, we all dwell in a problem, for maybe a bit longer than we should. We wallow in it, and let the frustration/anger/sadness/what have you build up until we’ve reached a point of mental exhaustion, and either do something about it, or let it go.

But what I am learning is that some people approach every issue/challenge/problem this way. Yikes. That amount of daily stress cannot be healthy! Do you know anyone like this?