‘So many people doing a week’s worth of shopping, Christmas is only one day, the shops do open Boxing Day, so stop overdoing it people, calm down.’

So declared the latest person this month to have a somewhat unnecessary moan about the behaviour of others on a local gossip board in Kent this week.

We might be in the midst of the season of goodwill but the pressure of the festive season also appears to have drawn out the very worst in people online over the last few days.

And local internet forums seem to have become a place where people are increasingly content to troll complete strangers, their own town and fellow neighbours.

There’s been the predictable posts and photos about people’s parking or driving, grumbles about takeaway staff running late with orders and a rather uncomfortable and judgemental public pile-on when one poor lady asked about the best place to take her child to get their ears pierced for her present.

If the internet is still in its ‘be kind’ era, there’s work to be done in this corner of the web.

Residents’ groups or ‘gossip boards’, as they’re often nicknamed, can prove to be a brilliant public forum.

Reuniting people with very precious items lost and then found, praising the actions of a local hero or rallying residents in the event of a crisis.

And in an increasingly fractured world where households don’t always have friends and family nearby, they also have the power to connect people too.

Why, therefore, are people so increasingly comfortable with being so publicly unkind?

But it ceases to be a worthwhile - or even reliable - public service if the discussion boards turn into toxic tattle.

Nasty words being banded about in the virtual world is often behaviour we’re comfortable to associate and blame on the young - but some of the unkind and disappointing words being fired from the keyboards of adults this week would justify them a place on the North Pole’s 2025 naughty list.