From a phone call down by the river to a sea of online abuse

IDO have a confession to make . . . I’m in love . . . and it’s an affair that started many years ago down by the Abbert River. Like thousands of other people across the country at the turn of the Millenium, my first mobile phone had been purchased . . . a rather plain looking and cumbersome Motorola, if memory serves me right.

That first phone call from the banks of the river related to a serious domestic inquiry: “Was the dinner ready yet or would it be long more?” The query was really only an excuse to play with the new love of my life – the ‘wonderful’ mobile.

Progress being what it is, I moved on to the wireless world of Nokias, which I had the height of respect for, given the fact that one of them fell from the tractor and dispersed into four or five pieces on the roadway. I gathered them up and managed to put it back together again and hey presto, it worked. Never again, would I have a bad word said about a Nokia.

Move on a couple of decades and now my iPhone is the partner that I cannot do without. Whether it’s the latest news bite; the up-to-date weather forecast at Ballyglunin Station; the runners at the next race in Ballinrobe; the scan of the recent death notices . . . it’s all there and of course, much more, in your pocket.

I often advise younger acquaintances never to leave their mobile on the counter of any watering hole they frequent, only to be guilty of the same ‘crime’ myself when the device is not by my bedside. Funny things happen too with mobiles . . . I’ve heard of lads who had two mobiles in their pockets when they went home without an ounce of malice being involved . . . while on another occasion, a caller was baffled when all his familiar numbers seemed to have disappeared from his phone: The reason, an exactly similar phone to his own left in front of him – but it wasn’t his!

All very light-hearted and a source of amusement for all concerned but of course like everything else with the growing dependence and usage of the smartest of smart phones, there is of course a massive downside to all of this. It’s two words that we’re now all very familiar with: online abuse.

Pictured: Hiding behind the hood and the keyboard.