Can ‘pebbling’ help you nurture better relationships?

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Imagine you’re sitting at your desk, feeling overwhelmed by the weight of daily tasks. Your mind is clouded with deadlines and worries.

Suddenly, your phone buzzes—a notification. It’s a meme from an old school friend you haven't spoken to in months. You laugh, feeling a wave of warmth as you recall shared memories.

This small act—seemingly trivial—sparks a lightness in your day and makes you feel connected. This is pebbling: a simple gesture-turned-social phenomenon that is quietly redefining how we connect and communicate today. Pebbling, a term borrowed from the mating rituals of male Gentoo penguins who offer pebbles to potential female mates as tokens of affection, has come to symbolise small, everyday acts of connection among humans.

It could be a quick text, a shared meme, a forwarded song, or even a short message that says, “Hey, I thought of you." But beyond these gestures, what is pebbling doing to our relationships? Is it a sign of evolving social norms, or does it risk diluting the depth of our connections? For Meera Acharekar, a French teacher at JBCN International School in Mumbai, pebbling is not just an abstract concept but a daily reality in her classroom. Acharekar recalls an experience that illustrates how small, consistent interactions can have a profound impact. “A couple of years back, I mentored two grade 10 students who were scoring B and C in French," she recounts.