Most people feel guilty after gossiping about a friend or colleague.
多數人總會在聊完朋友或同事八卦后感到愧疚。

But scientists have found that crafty chats - dubbed ‘gossip theory’ - are what makes us human, and may even help us live longer.
但科學家發現，正是這些狡詐的閑聊——稱之為“八卦理論”——成為人類獨有特點，甚至有可能延長壽命。

Gossip is what sets our species apart, as it helps us bonds with friends and learn important information about who to trust.
我們因談論不同八卦分成不同的小群體，這有助于我們與朋友團結一致，并從這些信息中判斷誰值得信任。

And it’s this vital communication that could prevent us from dying, something Robin Dunbar, professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University, believes is the ‘most important thing’ to keep us alive.
牛津大學進化心理學教授羅賓?鄧巴稱，正是這種交流可以防止我們死去，他堅信這是使我們保持生命力的“最重要的因素”。

Prof Dunbar told the Telegraph: ‘That has a bigger effect than anything, except giving up cigarettes.
鄧巴教授對英國《電訊報》說：“除了戒煙，這便是延長生命的最有效方式。

‘Your social network has a huge effect on happiness and well-being.
你的社交網極大地影響著你的幸福與健康。

‘The problem we have is how to maintain our social networks. Language evolved to allow us to keep the oil of the social network flowing, keep us up to date, and tell stories, which is really important for community cohesion.
我們面臨的問題是如何維護我們的社交網。語言的進化演變，使我們能夠保持社交網不中斷，實時更新消息，說故事，而這些對于社區凝聚力十分重要。

‘Gossiping is just chatting with people and keeping up to date with the social world in which you live. So gossip is what makes us human.
八卦只不過是與人閑聊，隨時了解社交環境的最新資訊。這是人類的特性。

‘The use of gossip in a negative sense is not seen until the 18th century.’
直到18世紀，八卦的消極影響才開始出現。

The idea is that as language developed it let humans communicate better and made them more likely to pass on useful information, allowing them to live in larger groups.
語言的進化使人類溝通更順利，互相傳遞有用信息的機會增多，因而能夠融入更大的群體中。”

?Yuval Noah Harari, a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told the paper: ‘The new linguistic skills that modern humans acquired about 70 millennia ago enabled them to gossip for hours on end.
耶路撒冷希伯來大學歷史學教授尤瓦爾?諾亞?哈拉里表示：“7萬年前，現代人類擁有的新語言技能使他們能夠連續幾個小時不斷地閑聊。

‘Reliable information about who could be trusted meant that small bands could expand into larger bands.
知道誰值得信任這一可靠信息就意味著小團體可以擴充成大團體。

‘Even today the vast majority of human communication, whether in the form of emails, phone calls or newspaper columns is gossip.
即便當下，人類溝通的主要內容，無論是通過郵件，電話或新聞專欄，都是八卦。

‘It comes so naturally, that it seems as if our language evolved for this very purpose.’
這些都十分自然而然地發生，似乎語言就是專門為了這個目的而進化。”

He added that ‘rumour-mongers’ were in fact the first journalists, helping inform others about who to avoid and who to trust.
他還補充道，實際上，“謠言傳播者”正是第一批新聞記者，告知其他人應避開何人，相信何人。

（英文來源：每日郵報 譯者：FNU郭鳳玲 編輯：馬文英）