Next time you’re in a crowded restaurant, ease back, hold your tongue and take note of the chatter. In the swirl of conversation, you’re likely to hear exchanges about bosses and co-workers, natter about neighbors and nitpicky in-laws – and, chances are good these days, at least one reference to Britney Spears.

Social researchers estimate two-thirds of all conversation is devoted to gossip. And studies suggest it’s no idle pursuit, that gossip might serve a valuable societal function. It’s the social glue that holds us together, currency we use to buy us into inner circles – and buy us more information. And researchers have found that gossip has a therapeutic quality, giving us a natural endorphin rush and an avenue to vent frustrations.

“Gossip is everywhere. It involves every one of us,” says rumor authority Richard Weiner, a public-relations veteran who turned the dimple-faced Cabbage Patch dolls into a pop cultural phenomenon of the 1980s.

“When I first started in the business and Walter Winchell died … everybody said the era of gossip was over. The fact of the matter is, gossip today is bigger than ever.”

Technology has made it easier, and faster, to traffic gossip. A study last year from the Social Issues Research Centre, a nonprofit think-tank in England, found our newfangled devices have helped us re-create the natural, instinctual communication patterns that bonded us before the Industrial Revolution fragmented our tight-knit social networks.

But if sociological studies like these liken gossip to a social glue that binds relationships, then writers Lori Palatnik and Bob Burg compare it to a vice that threatens to unravel relationships.

They argue we have become addicted to this type of speech, addicted to reading about the lives and misfortune of others instead of focusing on our own.

“Speech is a gift that we misuse,” says Palatnik, co-author of “Gossip: Ten Pathways To Eliminate It From Your Life and Transform Your Soul.” “Is this what we’ve come to when there’s nothing left to talk about unless we’re speaking badly about others?”

Scientific studies might argue humans are hard-wired to gossip, but to this Palatnik says, “Just like we are programmed to be eaters and drinkers, we don’t have to be gluttons and alcoholics.”