Published April 21, 2024

by Andy Berges

 

A study conducted in 2019 revealed that Americans spend an average of 52 minutes per day gossiping. That’s right. They waste nearly an hour per day of their lives gossiping about others because they are seemingly more concerned about other people’s business and affairs than they are about their own.

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The definition of gossip is – “casual or unconstrained conversation or reports about other people, typically involving details that are not confirmed as being true.”

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Whether we currently gossip or not, all of us are guilty of gossiping during our lives. While I often engaged in it, I now deem gossip as toxic noise pollution and steer clear of any involvement in it.

 

Gossipers are usually insecure and envious people who in most cases lack self-confidence and self-esteem. Most of them typically possess inferiority complexes, so they thrive upon ruining other people’s reputations because it somehow gives them a false sense of security and a feeling of superiority over others.

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They shamefully get excited when catching wind of someone’s shortcomings and enjoy telling as many others as possible about the person’s failings, sins, and any other bad news they can muster up about them.

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Their immoral nature takes pleasure in others’ sorrowful circumstances. For instance, they would much rather hear news about a married couple’s rocky marriage ending in a nasty divorce than hear news that the couple came to a peaceful resolution in their marriage.

 

As Ephesians 4:29 instructs us, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

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Keep in mind that in nearly all cases, people who gossip to you about someone else behind their backs, are also gossiping about you to someone else behind your back. 

 

Rather than frivolously wasting 52 minutes per day of their lives gossiping, Americans should instead spend those minutes engaging in productive and constructive conversations while always taking heed to Eleanor Roosevelt's words of wisdom...

 

"Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.”