John Arnold: Gossip, lies, and fakery online...people forget it’s good to talk

It must be well over 20 years ago since I got my first mobile phone. To tell the truth, ‘mobile’ was nearly a misnomer, sure ’twas a brick of a thing, nearly as big as half a Bord na Móna peat briquette!

Oh, but lads, I was amazed with it -to be able to talk to someone somewhere else and no wires or cables in between - pure magic.

I didn’t understand the concept of how the thing worked back then and I still can’t fathom it today! That’s me; a pure Luddite when it comes to matters electrical, technical, or mechanical.

The day I got the phone we were playing an under-age hurling tournament below in Aghada - for the Willie Ryan Cup. Well, the competition was going on all day and by evening time I’d to head for the hills of Bartlemy to milk the cows.

Sure, I was dying to know how the games were going below in Rostellan and at about half-six the phone rang! I had given my new shiny, lovely ‘mobile number’ to one of the lads who remained in East Cork.

Now I knew how Thomas Watson felt when his boss Alexander Graham Bell, in 1876, uttered the words “Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you” - I think we were actually beaten in the Tournament Final!

I’ve spent a lot of time on the mobile since that Saturday evening - I think the phone I have now is my fourth one, “And still I gaze and still the wonder grows, how a little yoke can carry all it knows”.

Then, when texting was invented, sure, that was me happy altogether -simply amazing. That’s me, still using the mobile for calls and texts - what more would anyone in their sane senses want, I ask you?

A lot apparently, but to be honest, I think the whole thing is now well gone beyond the beyonds altogether.

A man told me the other day that in his part of Cork they have a kind of a pre-nuptial agreement, ‘no text before marriage’, and you know, tis a sound piece of advice as a letter here or there in the wrong place or a wrong word could have devastating results.

A few years back, I was practising for a bit of a sketch for some show or another on some rural stage. It was a two-hander piece of hilarious comedy concerning a man (me) and his ‘wife’, a female friend of mine who shall be nameless for fear of unintended consequences!

Anyhow, the show was drawing near and we were practising ‘our lines’ as often as we could. We met on this particular evening for an hour or two. Parting, we were trying to arrange the next rehearsal.

Says I: “I’ll text you if I can make it on Friday night - early.”

“Grand,” says she.

So, while driving the tractor across the Orchard Field on the Thursday morning, I sent a text asking the question: “Are we OK for six on Friday night?”

Now, mind, I had no glasses on and boys, oh boys, didn’t I spell the number after five with an ‘e’ instead of an ‘i’.

I could have been up in court for procurement, inducement or incitement to non-casual relations. Luckily, the ‘receiving party’ was broadminded and she understood my tendency to press the wrong button with the left finger.

All ended OK on that occasion, but since then matters are gone to the dogs altogether.

The world of social media and networking is out of control. In my mind, it’s absolutely wrong to allow ‘persons unknown’ to ‘post’ comments - often scurrilous garbage - about anyone and everyone.

People tell me if one is in the public eye you are ‘fair game’ for this kind of commentary. That’s absolute rubbish and no-one that hasn’t the conviction, courage, and decency to put their name to a comment should be allowed to spread terrible rubbish.

Long ago, if a person was questioned about a statement they made, the answer might come, “Sure, I read it in the paper”, as much as to say that newspapers were above and beyond printing anything other than the truth. Editors and sub-editors had a tough task, but that was their job and journalistic integrity was valued.

No doubt, social media has a lot of very positive features, but lads, it must be controlled before it goes too far.

Maybe we’re already gone beyond the point of no return. Isn’t it simply shameful to see, on a worldwide scale, so many cases of abuse, derogatory comments, insults and racial hatred?

This didn’t start today or yesterday, yet attempts to control the situation are branded as ‘censorship’ and met with noisy opposition.

Even in Ireland, attempts to control the content that is freely available to young children are opposed. Cries of a ‘nanny State’ are hurled at those who suggest regulation; maybe we should accept that the glorious ideal of personal responsibility sounds great but is seldom practised.

I think it is the greatest scandal of our times that mega multi-national corporations make billions in profits peddling pornography, filth, and blatant untruths.

Is society gone down the sewers of depravity so much that it has given up on trying to restore common decency and standards in every walk of life? Why are Irish people so crazy about the use of apps and platforms and the devil knows what else, to the exclusion of plain old conversation?

Lord, it galls me on buses, trains, in cafes, shops and hotels to see people glued to their phones.

Of course, I’m old-fashioned and I do accept that many people nowadays only get their ‘news’ digitally, but does this mean that in another decade or three, conversation - the actual art of talking - will be largely forgotten?

Back in 1904, Lady Gregory first staged her play Spreading The News - it’s all about gossip and how it can cause unimagined trouble - even violence. Set in 1934, Martin McDonagh’s play The Cripple Of Inishmaan also deals with a similar theme. Johnnypateenmike brings and takes ‘news’ for a price.

So we can see that spreading false stories and rumours is not new, but the use of modern social media has amplified and magnified it to a huge extent.

Truly, we’re in the era of ‘fake news’, and with the coming of Artificial Intelligence (AI), what can we believe anymore?

Only last week, a man told me what had ‘happened’ to the Cork hurling team on the day of the All-Ireland Final. He could tell me verbatim about the dressing room scenario, the banquet, the Cork players coming home by taxi on Sunday night!

I quizzed him about his sources - he was on holidays abroad the day of the final! Truly, it was a case of ‘dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi’ - well, a fella told him, and that man’s brother’s sister-in-law was a Garda on duty in Dublin on the day and ‘she swears tis the truth’ - what a load of complete nonsense, yet many Cork people were lapping it up for the last three weeks.

Where is it all going to end, that’s what I want to know - no-one can be sure, but it won’t be for the better.

Long ago, in more innocent times, we all heard about the story (and only a story) of the Army General giving the command, ‘Send up reinforcements, we’re going to advance’.

The message was relayed and relayed until it got to its ‘destination’ as ‘Send up three and fourpence, we’re going to a dance!’