el retorno
Member
It's not fun though. It's anti-social and anti-intellectual. The only purpose that gossip serves is to feed an undeserving craving. It does more harm than good pretty much 100% of the time. The only time it doesn't do any harm, it also doesn't do any good. Those are the times people just ignore a story and nothing happens. Nothing positive there, it just means it dodged being a negative thing.
Gossip and paparazzi by nature are not interested in actual reporting, factual accuracy, or journalism. They are interested in riling people up and presenting opinions based on facts which might or might not have been distorted simply to get a reaction from an audience hungry for every scrap of irrelevant information about individuals they obsessively follow either out of admiration or disdain. There is nothing healthy about it, and there never has. But with social networking, the problem seems to be getting worse.
This is nothing new though. People have always done this. Talked behind each others backed. Had stupid arguments, said stupid things and talked about those things to other people. I don't mean to say its healthly for an ideal human society (its not) but its seems to be a part of human nature. I disagree that things are getting worse. I think social media just makes it more visible and its ubiquity gives us more time to comment on these things.