Breath freshening, snack avoiding, and apparently annoying other people.
I’ve often taken my gum out to put in its wrapper at disposal time, and surprised people who didn’t know I had any. I am a fairly unobtrusive gum chewer, and when I see people who feel the need to chew it like maniacs, I want to use said gum to stick all their orifices shut.
Huh?
I have a number of relatives and acquaintances who partake in this, and gum-chewing is not anywhere near as disgusting.
I can understand how a gum chewer might get annoying after two hours, but as both an ex-smoker and someone who suffers serious ear pain on flights, sometimes it really is for a good reason. Would it be better if I lit up a cigarette or constantly groaned from ear pain while I’m sitting next to you?
Breath freshening, and (relatedly) because I usually don’t like having the taste of a meal lingering in my mouth after said meal.
That said, I probably chew a piece of gum for 5-10 minutes after a meal, tops.
Um, you’ve been whooshed, dear. It’s a line from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder movie, not the Jonny Depp one of a similar title). The next line was provided in the following post (“I know a worse one,”) and in the movie referred to nose picking.
What everyone else said. I often have dry mouth or an icky taste in my mouth, even after brushing. Also, gum helps satisfy an oral fixation instead of food. I’m not a chomper, although I will chew vigorously sometimes. But more often I’ll just sort of mush the gum around with my tongue or let it sit in the pouch of my cheek.
It’s preferable to subjecting people to my breath throughout the day. Plus it’s an oral fixation.
I’ve recently realized that it does look crappy to sit there chomping away in meetings, so I chew one piece briefly to freshen my breath, and then toss it before entering the meeting room.
Clean (ish) teeth, fresh breath. I did catch myself chewing it on camera and was sort of appalled by how it made me look… but what can you do?
I chew gum after eating. Freshens my breath and loosens food particles. Everybody’s better off.
I find those little Chiclet-sized pieces of gum in the foil packs are pretty good for freshening my breath without compelling me to chew interminably. They’re spent after 5 or 10 minutes.
I could chew Extra, on the other hand, for hours.
Like many other posters, I chew gum for the breath freshening power and sometimes if I don’t have time to brush my teeth, I’ll chew a piece of dentyne or trident and pretend it will help with morning gunk. I will chew a piece for 4 or 5 hours as well. At least, I put a piece in at 6 or 7 in the morning, get distracted and totally forget about the gum until lunch. This only happens with the gum that comes in the little rectangles. Stick gum just dissolves away.
I started chewing gum when I quit smoking. It’s half a stick of Trident at a time. For the first 5 minutes it’s in my mouth I chew it into a nice ball then it often sits between my teeth and tongue with the occasional couple of chews then move it to a different location. When I am finished with the gum, it is always wrapped in something then tossed in the trash. In most cases, people don’t even know I have gum in my mouth.
I thought it was spitting?
“Suck on them and you can spit in seven different colors!”
“Spitting’s a dirty habit!”
“I know a worse one.” (Wonka, To Violet, who was chewing like a cow, IIRC?)
Oh Jesus, how did I even remember that, I haven’t seen that movie in a decade.
Anyway, I chew gum because it keeps me awake (at a night job) and I like the flavor.
Chewing gum keeps me from indulging in my many nervous habits. Other than the initial couple minutes of chewing the gum is usually just stuck somewhere in my mouth, and chewed on when I start to feel the urge to bite my nails, twirl my hair, tap my fingers exc.
So yes, gum chewing is the lesser of (many) evils!
I think the girl involved was Veruca Salt, who was picking her nose. Thank God we got that sorted out.
I like gum for the first thirty seconds. Then I start to think about how it’s not actually food, and I’m not supposed to swallow it. Finally I just get disgusted at having this wad of . . . stuff in my mouth that’s clearly not food, and I spit it out, usually while it’s still got some flavor. (By the way, does that Stride brand gum really keep its flavor an unusually long time?)
Oh, I remember now. Thank you. 
It keeps me from biting my nails, too. Such an awful, nervous habit.
On my first day in high school 56 years ago, my homeroom teacher Mr. Keefe recited to us a short poem. I only heard it that once, but I have never forgotten it and it has colored my view of gum-chewing ever since: The gum chewing girl and the cud chewing cow/ Were the same yet different somehow/Oh, now I remember/ It was the intelligent look on the face of the cow.
It gives me something to do with my mouth other than eat. Also, my breath gets pretty gross from coffee and I don’t always have time to brush at work, so a piece of gum chewed while I’m prepping for a meeting can be a lifesaver (no pun intended).
Oh, yeah. I also get really motion sick on planes, so it’s often a choice between me spewing all over who’s sitting next to me and chewing a piece of gum. I’d be a lot more slender if I chose the first option, but everyone would be a lot stinkier and more pissed off.