Discovering Scottish Roots: I find Peter Munro 1823-1857 at Aberfoyle.

Discovering My Scottish Roots 1: 

Looking for Peter Munro at Aberfoyle Cemetery and unravelling his Stirlingshire connections.

by Tom Thorne

Readers may recall that earlier this Spring I wrote about my impending trip to Scotland. The purpose of this trip was to hammer home some loose ends concerning my family history research and also to experience the ground where my Scottish ancestors trod. Getting on the ground makes research tangible at least for me. It was, I admit, also a bit of a bucket list item for an aging septuagenerian. 

However in pursuing this bucket list item I can only report that it was a very useful and interesting thing to do. I connected into Edinburgh Airport completely jet lagged from a flight from Canada to Brussels and a wait for the flight to Scotland that entailed hanging about the Brussels airport for almost a full day. 

I had exhausted the bright lights of the duty free area of Brussels Airport in about ten minutes where the bookstore offered only trashy potboilers and books that solved such problems as proper household budgeting and making a mint  on the stock market. In my tired state I decided to close my eyes and rest. However the hard seats negated any real attempt to rest. Finally, I boarded an admirable Canadian built turboprop Dash 8 for Edinburgh in the middle afternoon.

Once in Edinburgh I got my rental car painlessly and took off down the road to the closest Travel Lodge where I sacked out until morning. It was a bit disconcerting driving on the left side in my fatigued state, but the hotel was only two kilometers from the Airport so I made it in once piece. Much is made by those of us schooled in right side driving about adapting to the left side of the road. I  usually find it a painless exercise only slightly more harrying when a need for sleep is really your first priority.

The next morning (12 April 2013) I started the real family history quest. I installed my GPS in the rental car and it lit up perfectly with my Edinburgh location. I set it for Aberfoyle a village in Sterlingshire and headed out. My ultimate destination that day was my Bed and Breakfast in Bonhill near Dumbarton, but the short Aberfoyle detour enabled me to explore the graveyard where Peter Munro was buried in 1857.

Peter Munro was the son of my great great great grandfather Duncan Munro (1790-1882). His mother was Janet McCunn (1783-1869) and he was the third child of a family of four. The eldest was Agnes Munro born 1818, John Munro born 1821 and Archibald Munro born 1825.  I descend from Archibald Munro through his daughter Janet Munro (1858-1898) and her “natural” son Andrew Mitchell Munro (1879-1948).

Peter Munro was a farm labourer who worked mostly at Drymen in Stirlingshire. I searched for his head stone in the rain. The older part  of Aberfoyle cemetery on Manse Road is in poor shape. Many stones are covered by lichen or worst yet, toppled text side down.

One stone, however, caught my eye. It was very simple, worn, and its text was covered by lichen. Later in the trip I would find another stone erected by Duncan Munro in 1820 at Rhu Cemetery at Helensburgh in the memory of his McCunn parents in law and it proved to be a similar simple stone like this one. I spent a long time looking for Peter Munro’s grave in the rain and the stone below, I believe, is his memorial erected by his father.  Along the grass line is the engraved text “Munro” found by careful scrutiny of the photo and on site.

This is Peter Munro's grave at Aberfoyle Cemetery in Stirlingshire. In the right hand bottom corner along the grass line

is the engraved word "Munro" just barely visible through the lichen growth on the stone.

We know that Peter Munro is buried at Aberfoyle Cemetery because it is recorded on his death certificate, although the on line Cemetery list of graves does not show him which is understandable seeing the condition of his and other gravestones. 

He died of “gastric fever six weeks” at Fintry a nearby village, not far down the road and near Drymen where he had also worked as an agricultural labourer from at least age 17. The 1841 Census records show him in the Parish of Buchanan at Ross Mcalpine Farm. at that age.  Later in the 1851 Census records we find him at Gartenbrodnack Farm at Drymen aged 27.

He was 34 at his death and was born at Dumbarton in 1823. There is no mention of his wife Agnes Blair a local woman whom he married at Drymen in 1853 nor their son Duncan who was born at Fintry in 1854.

His father Duncan Munro came up from the Bonhill-Dumbarton area to take care of the funeral arrangements. We know this because he signed the death certificate. To go by car today from Aberfoyle to Dumbarton is about 45 minutes to an hour. This would be a three day trip in 1857 for Duncan who was 67 years old at that time. 

In the 1851 Census  Duncan Munro is living a long way from Fintry and Aberfoyle on the Strathleven Place estate near Dumbarton town with his wife  Janet McCunn and two unmarried sons John and Archibald both “fleshers” or butchers. In addition, the future wife of Archibald Munro, and my great great great grandmother, Helen Mitchell (born 1831) in Barony Glasgow is also living with them. She is described as a “House Servant”. She was likely working for someone else. Duncan and Janet could ill afford any servants.

Peter Munro lived a short life and the fate of his family is not known at this time. What we do know about his wife  Agnes Blair and her family comes from a 1841 Census tract. Here is her family. They are living on a farm called Blarnabord also near Drymen. I have added the birth years. The 1841 Census is somewhat irritating because it does not record the county origins of people not born in the Census area, hence the “Outside Census County” designation.

Blair Walter M 55 Farmer Outside Census County born 1786

Blair Margaret F 45 Outside Census County born 1797

Blair John M 15 Stirlingshire born 1826

Blair Walter M 13 Stirlingshire born 1828

Blair Agnes F 11 Stirlingshire born 1830

Blair Janet F   6 Stirlingshire born 1835

Other people are also on the farm, some of interest with the name Blair. There is another Walter Blair age 40.

Blair Walter M 40 Outside Census County born 1801

Blair James M 55  Dyke builder Stirlingshire born 1786

Blair Duncan M 15  Agricultural lab. Stirlingshire born 1826

Others on the farm are: Alexander McGregor 15, Agricultural labourer from Stirlingshire; William Thomson, 15, Agricultural labourer from Outside Census Country; Christina McLaren, 20, Female Servant, Outside Census County; Christina Campbell, 15, Female Servant, Outside Census County; Robert McKay, 40, Dykebuilder, Outside Census County. 

We don’t know whether Walter Blair, 55, was a tenant or a land owner. The number of farm labourers suggests a farm that was at least a going concern.  Agnes Blair is 11 years old which makes her birth year 1830 seven years younger than her future husband Peter Munro. That would make her 23 at her marriage at Drymen on 7 June 1853 and Peter would have been 30. The birth of their first child Duncan Munro (named after his paternal grandfather)  on 1 November 1854 at Fintry, comes after 18 months of marriage. 

Going back to Peter Munro’s 1851 Census reference in Drymen at Gartonbrodnack Farm Peter worked as a “farm servant”  for a Gavin Paterson who was a shepherd. Sheep farming was something Peter knew well. His own father, Duncan Munro was a shepherd all his life. By this time the 1851 entry reveals Peter’s birthplace as “Dumbartonshire-Dumbarton”.

© Copyright 2013, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Reporting on some promising signs as the Brussels Airport baggage handlers try to put a good face on their wild cat strike.

Brussels baggage handlers watch airline administrative staff load planes with customer suitcases.

I have just learned from a very reliable  airline source at 1615 hours today that my airline's administrative staff have been loading their own planes under the somewhat hostile eyes of wild catting Swissfort baggage handlers.  Today I was critical that my airline's phones were not answered. The reason they were on the tarmac making certain customers are served. I suggested that they place a message on their phones saying what they are doing and how their customers come first.

Apparently other airlines seeing the initiative of the Jet Airways staff are following suit. It is good to hear that practical solutions are now underway to clear the stranded passengers. Apparently talks are still underway to solve the problems of the wild cat strikers. These talks apparently have senior management  from the Swissfort company, government labour officials, the airport management and of course the striker's bargaining team.

In addition affected airlines are clearing their stranded passengers by routing them  to other airlines not affected by the strike. Not all airlines use Swissfort at Brussels Airport so this is possible.

What I find somewhat irritating is the fact that when I was in the airport on 14 May the Swissport strikers came out of the baggage handling areas and performed a noisy demonstration in the passenger terminal. It was irksome as a stranded passenger to have to put up with this type of stupid bravado. Some older passengers were shocked by this blatant disregard for the dilemma strikers had created by their wild cat strike actions. 

My source tells me that the baggage to be cleared from the first days of the strike down in the sorting area is large and chaotic. Hopefully now this silly strike ends and baggage handlers return to normal. However in the offing are strikes by air traffic controllers. The European labour unions need to get a dose of reality about the economic effects this kind of action has on tourism and business for the Euro Zone. 

© Copyright 2013, Tom Thorne, All rights reserved.

Day four of the Brussels Airport baggage handlers strike. Is a settlement near? Is there any other choice?

The Great Silence has descended on the Brussels Airport baggage strike. Is it a good omen that a settlement is near?

by Tom Thorne, Brugge Belgium 15 May 2013

In the world of labour relations often the Great Silence descends as the sides of a dispute get down to the short strokes, solving their problems and finally agreeing. The Brussels Airport baggage handler's strike may be in that mode at the moment.

We can only hope that this silence is a good omen. This morning no one was answering calls at my airline or answering my emails for information. Yesterday I contacted Swissfort the company the baggage handlers work for, asking them to comment and to this moment they have not replied. 

My guess and hope as a stranded passenger is that the silence and the lack of rhetoric signals progress. My wife and I just want to go home. Apparently senior Swissfort managers are at the table along with representatives of the Belgian government's Ministry of Labour. 

The negotiators will all be tiptoeing around the issues so no one's nose is out of joint and the political facts of labour-government-management are not tipped too far from the usual status quo as Europe wallows in its recessional woes.

Now here is some food for thought for the airlines involved. Information flow to passengers is very important and thinking out of the usual box is also needed in a crisis like this one. The trouble with this idea is the very company in negotiations with the baggage handlers provides the check in and other passenger services too.

So a big firm like Swissfort has the power to control an airport while they go about dealing with their unions often at the expense of passengers who are caught up in their corporate ethos. Swissfort is such a company. They are big and provide all aspects of services to freight haulers, airlines and airports. They are probably too big. A recent poll of their employees ranked their management as remote and uncaring. If that is the attitude around the table it is a recipe for disaster and mistrust.

When their services are working all parts of contemporary travel by plane seem to work well. The check in is good the baggage systems rarely fail or loose luggage. The public and the airlines and the airports are happy. However in the case of Brussels Airport Swissfort holds lot of the business and in the case of this baggage strike a vital and sizable part of service to passengers is compromised when there is a labour action.

The current baggage handlers believe they are understaffed and overworked. That may be true because turfing 25 kilo bags around can be tiring. However this notion of entitlement in contemporary European labour relations is being severely tested by the recession's impact on labour demands and expectations contrasted against management's view of profitability of their operations. More people on the baggage lines means more costs and those costs could very easily these days be invested in automation in the next few years rather than into pay packets for unhappy or surly workers with status quo high expectations.

So we are faced as passengers with the results of an economic European recession playing out in the bowels of the airport baggage handling. The truth is European labour and its lax laws is in a state of change and a dose of reality. Too much is expected and the pretense of business as usual remembering the good old days of post war expansion of business and the Euro social programs is now under great stress throughout the Euro Zone. That is the context I am experiencing as a passenger just wanting to go home with my luggage.

© Copyright 2013 Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved

Wildcat strike lands body blow to Swissport management and its airline clients. The real stress is on stranded passengers.

Brussels Airport: A baggage strike by Swissport employees strands thousands of passengers.

by Tom Thorne, Brugge Belgium, 14 May 2013

Sunday 12 April 2013 was an interesting day at Brussels Airport. The baggage handlers working for Swissport decided to pull a wild cat strike throwing the airport into a logistical nightmare of not being able to load any bags or unload passenger luggage without long waits.

Admittedly I have a bias in all of this. I am a Jet Airways customer and I was scheduled to return to Canada from Belgium on their flight 230 on 14 May. It never happened. My wife and I spent 205 Euros getting our two large bags, and ourselves with hand luggage to the airport . When we arrived we could not check our bags and so we returned to Brugge. We are lucky we are back with relatives hoping that before Thursday we will see a resolution to the strike.

While we were at the airport we experienced one spark of hope. An employee of Jet Airways told us that if we could lug our bags and hand luggage through security they would be loaded by employees of the airline on the tarmac.  My wife and I said we would give it a try. This proved to be false hope although we were in a joyous line believing that we would get a boarding pass for a promising five minutes.

The airline stated it could not accept baggage with no baggage handling in place and so we were saddled with a decision they gave us to rebook or perhaps even abandon our luggage if we wanted to go home to Canada today. The airline would take no responsibility for our bags. We took the rebook option for Thursday 16 May when hopefully this strike will be over. If it's not over then we are stuck in Belgium until it is or until Jet Airways gets us out in some way, a probability being weighed according to a Jet Airways source I spoke to today.

Airline employees were seen moving checked luggage from Monday 13 May to another location on a small cart. Back and forth they went with large loads of checked bags that went no where when their owners flew out. When will these bags be delivered? No one could say and they were now a problem to store.

The striking employees are negotiating with their employer Swissport a large multifaceted company based in Zurich that provides airlines with ground and cargo services. Examining their website media releases for some word about the strike, readers are met with their awards they received as a "leader" in their field. There is no mention of their current deadlocked negotiations with their union at Brussels Airport.  Today I contacted them by email for a statement. At time of publication I have no answer.

To this point in time the Belgian Government is no where to be seen intervening in this strike. Knowledgeable Belgians I know tell me that the government and unions are topics that are highly political and that government action will be perhaps be not visible because of potential political fallout.

If that is so then the union has a lot of aces to play and this strike could be prolonged. That would call into effect the government's responsibility to act for the greater good of the public and  the reputation of Belgium as a tourist location.  In addition, Belgium  needs to seen as a good place to do business. A country where labour and management are more in balance and not so polarized as they are in this case.


The story continues.

© Copyright 2013, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved

Family history is becoming an on-line business. How can primary records be made available at a reasonable cost?

19th century haying at Inveraray Castle near the Glenaray.

Family history is on line and the past is available like never before. However the past is not free.

by Tom Thorne

“We look at the present through a rearview mirror. We march backwards into the future.” - Marshall McLuhan

Imagine a society without access to its past. Even if it has built large paper or even clay tablet archives of the past, they were largely accessed only by bureaucrats, registrars, specialized scholars and professionals. Long before computers the Church of Latter Day Saints  (CLS) began to archive births marriages and death information of the world amplified by a religious conviction they hold about saving souls of past relatives. They collected or put it all on microfilms. Their diligent work to index and put on microfilm millions of records was a major contribution to family history study and remains so to this day.

When computers came on the scene the CLS quickly adapted their files to the new medium and created an on line index which is often the first place to look to find an ancestor before either getting the original archived record or its image on analogue film or going on line for it from venders. These films are available at Church of Latter Day Saints family research centres at no cost and also on line for no charge. The CLS Family Centre I use is a few kilometers away. At Salt Lake City  are also now working to digitize the primary records for on line use. Laudable work.

Their analogue microfilm rolls 1041007, 1041009 contains most of my Scottish family living in Argyllshire from the 17th Century through to the 19th Century. When this film was indexed on a computer database it opened up a vast resource that I can access on my personal computer and iPad before going to the centre to see the original file or ordering it in my case from Scotland’s People the Scottish Government’s web site for family history. 

One of the best experiences I have had researching my own family history was getting access to the 1779 Duke of Argyll’s Census (DAC). My ancestors are listed in this secondary document transcribed and published by the Scottish Genealogical Society. For about a year I kept seeing it crop up as a source in people’s discussions on line. Then I found it was available  and was indexed in my nearby CLS office. 

It seemed like a mysterious document because no one had really seen the entire volume in the flesh. It was not widely available and hard copies of it seemed hard to get.  Probably a small select print run made it a rare book. None of our local university libraries had a copy. However the Robart’s Research Library at the University of Toronto over 200 kilometers from my home had one on their shelves. I opted for the CLS film.

I asked my local CLS family research office if they had it. No, they didn’t, but they would gladly bring it in from Salt Lake City. When it arrived I received a call to come in and use it.

It turned out to be a revelation about who was who on the Duke of Argyll’s lands in 1779-80 and it contained so many Munros that I had to set about learning about them. It also listed all their children and provided the maiden names of their wives. It was in a word useful. I provided part of it in an earlier story still on this blog in the June 2012 story: Family history: The Duke of Argyll's 1779 Census (DAC) of his properties provides insight into 18th Century Argyllshire and my family's origins.

The first problem was that we had the DAC microfilm for 10 days so I asked if I could photograph relevant pages for future reference. The prospect of writing out these pages was daunting and because their laser printer was on the fritz they agreed.

I photographed the entire document taking particular attention to the Argyll farms with Munros that were concentrated in the Glenaray and down Loch Fyne to Auchindrain Farm which is now a museum devoted to presenting the life on these collective family farms. I also focused on the Roseneath pages which records McCunns and McFarlanes that are also part of my family’s story. 

So there it is. If this material was not indexed and on line no one would know about it. The fact that is now available means that family history studies are personalized and no longer the province of archivists and experts. 

The Scotland’s People site has become a money maker for the Scottish government and their devotion to bring more and more material on line is endless. The following Census material is now available: 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and recently 1901 and 1911. However, their fees to access and download images of primary documents I find expensive.

That is why I use the free Church of Latter Day Saints indices on line. They have posted Census index files to 1891. This index tells a relevant file exists to pay for if you need to see it. A useful service.

Family history is becoming a business with venders such as Ancestry.com. However many times these services provide local library public subscriptions that enable researchers to check files that you may want for free.  One can get the original image in my the case from, Scotland’s People. I have a policy that once I have a digital file of a primary document I make it available to other researchers and this policy is reciprocated by my contacts.

This policy pays dividends in knowledge. A good example of this was a recent Australian contact who is related to me from the 18th and early 19th Centuries, provided me with the Inveraray Glenaray record of John and Mary Munro’s marriage in 1789. I was pleased to see that this file stated clearly that John Munro was “in Drimfern” which confirms the Glenaray farm that John Munro is found on in the Duke of Argyll’s 1779 Census (DAC).

However, there was a further payoff on the page of about 12 other marriages in 1788-1789 registry. The payoff is provided by this entry. “1788 Munro and McKeller: Finlay Munro in this parish (Inveraray and Glenaray) Janet McKeller in the parish of Strachur (just across Loch Fyne from Inveraray) gave in their names and were married April 21 at Inveraray.”

Finlay Munro is the younger brother of John Munro married in 1789. By a quirk of fate both their marriages are found on the same page of this primary document from Scotland’s People. Finlay is also found on Drimfern farm in the 1779 Duke of Argyll Census. 

Discovering why certain stubborn facts keep emerging in index systems can only be solved by seeing the primary document. One of the children of the John and Mary Munro mentioned above, was Grizel Munro born in 1793. She married Alexander Crawford in 1816. We can find this marriage with no difficulty and Census files thereafter from 1841 on also with no problem.

However there is a reference with the correct parents in all indices to a Grizel Munro whose birth was registered in 1822. Is it the same Grizel? It turns out it is because somehow her parents didn’t register her birth in 1793 and did so in 1822. 

So the Register was opened to the pages for 1793 and the following was inserted in 1822: “Munro: Grizel lawful daughter of John Munro in Drimfern and Mary Munro his spouse was born 15 July 1793 and Baptized on the same date 1793 years”.  Grizel perhaps rectified this herself as she began to have her own family. Her first son Neil Crawford was also born in 1822. This adventurous lad went to South Australia in1839 resulting in the people I am in contact with today.

An upcoming story in this space will deal with the costs of accessing primary documents from governments and private venders and the counterpoint to those costs offered by collective organizations such FreeCen at their website: http://www.freecen.org.uk/

© Copyright 2013, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved. 

Roots: I go to Scotland to make my family history more tangible. Seeing where it happened enables dry facts to come alive.

Argyle and parts of Dumbartonshire in the 19th Century. 
The scene of my family history from the 17th-20th Centuries 

A genealogy trip to Scotland: Roots on the ground or is it simply satisfying a bucket list item of an aging geriatric?

by Tom Thorne

I have the family history bug. Stories still on this blog attest to this interest. Family Historyitis is a pleasantly incurable syndrome, however, and at times it smacks of an obsession. The infection is now at a point where to really understand my Argyllshire Scottish roots I feel compelled to get on the ground in Scotland.

This has morphed into a trip to Scotland this spring. On 10 April 2013 my wife Mieke and I, make for Brussels Airport from Toronto where we land on the morning of 11 April. At the airport Mieke goes off with her Belgian family primarily to see her mother who is 92  this year.

I hang about Brussels Airport for a tiring day and then in the afternoon fly on to Edinburgh where I intend to get my rental car and go to sleep in the first hotel I find. On the morning of 12 April my jet lagged odyssey into family history begins. 

In 2007 we went to Scotland to tour the highlands and see Neolithic megalithic standing stones and other archaeological evidence at Callanish on the Hebrides,  Brognar Ring on Orkney and other sites throughout the Scottish Highlands. That was a wonderful trip but the fleeting hour we spent in Inveraray ( the Argyll origins of my Munro family) while on our rushed way to a ferry to the Hebrides, was simply an unsatisfying prelude to what was really needed.

This time I will have from 12-23 April to focus only on family history then I return to Belgium and a trip to see World War II Holland and my regiment’s (The Royal Canadian Regiment) contribution to the liberation. 

In Scotland there will be a luxury of time compared to 2007 experience because I will  get on the ground and fully into the family history task. The basic trip is from Edinburgh over to the Dumbarton-Trossachs- Aberfoyle area where my Munros lived and worked in the early 19th Century after they came down from Inveraray about 1818.  

Some of their descendants still live in this area today. I will meet some of these contemporary people and see where my family is buried and where they lived. Sadly my generation of cousins from the 1940’s are mostly dead which is a sobering thought for me. I am the only one left of my mother’s sisters and brother’s children at nearly 72 years old. 

However, a lot  of evidence remains in Bonhill, Dumbuck, Dumbarton, Helensburgh and Roseneath from the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, Dumbuck House an old 18th Century estate house is now a hotel on the Clyde River near Dumbarton. In 1861 my great great great grandmother Helen Mitchell Munro died on this estate at age 28 from tubercolosis. 

The Strathleven House estate now a local government building in Dumbarton, is the site of where Duncan Munro worked as a shepherd in 1851 and nearby Mains Farm area is a suburb now where he lived in 1861. Spouts farm where Duncan Munro lived in 1841 as a shepherd with his family is still in open country.  The shepherd’s house now a recorded archaeological site, retains the stone outline of a small cottage that can still be seen. It makes family history much more tangible. You see the ground and looking to the west from Spouts, the Leven River flows towards the Clyde River from Loch Lomond.

I will be staying in a Bonhill bed and breakfast which is how a visitor can link to an area because you can mine local knowledge from your hosts. However my bed and breakfast is near where Duncan Munro 1790-1882 from Inveraray and a huge extended family lived nearby at 145 Main Street in 1881 at the age of 91. That building also still exists along with their parish church.

Once I have done this part of the trip which includes examining Rhu Parish churchyard Plot 71 for evidence of Peter McCunn and Agnes McFarlane the parents of Duncan Munro’s wife Janet McCunn 1783-1869,  I go north to Inveraray and Argyllshire where the family goes back to at least the 17th Century. In the 18th Century the Munros were concentrated on farms in the Glenaray a river valley behind Inveraray town. I will be carrying primary documents and early maps on my iPad to guide me. 

Again, I will be staying in a bed and breakfast in Inveraray from 15-22 April to gain local lore. On 19 April I will attend a luncheon meeting of the Neil Munro Society. Neil Munro is a famous journalist and author who is also an Argyll Munro with origins in the Glenaray at Ladyfield Farm. At that time I meet Duncan Beaton who is related to me through Archibald Munro 1798-1864 who was the brother of my ancestor Duncan Munro 1790-1882 and both born in Inveraray Glenaray Parish to John and Mary Munro who married in 1789.

We can trace the parents of both these people into the Glenaray at Drimfern Farm where Archibald Munro born 1712 lived with his wife Isobel McIlvoile or Bell, born 1723. We find all these people in the wonderful primary Duke of Argyll census document  of 1779 which I have transcribed onto my iPad. I hope to find information about which Mary Munro, John Munro actually married in 1789. Perhaps someone will know the answer.

I think you get the picture why it is important to get on the ground. There is only so much a researcher can do on line and from downloaded documents. I need to get a tangible sense of place and time by tramping about on the “auld sod”. Watch this space for discoveries.

© Copyright 2013, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.

Each smart phone, iPad and laptop is a roving entry and exit point to a vast network. How does this fact change society?

The new normal: the smart device electronic campfire.

Smart portable Information Age techniques are changing how we think and interact with each other.

by Tom Thorne

The techniques of the Information Age are personal and portable. Users can rove anywhere, anytime and be in touch with the world. No time in human history has provided such a series of techniques devoted to constant always on personal communication.

Now many young people do not have a hard wired telephone connection. They use cell or smart phones as their primary and often their only telephone. Twenty somethings see this as perfectly normal. Analogue telephone systems are largely unknown to them.

Roving with a smart phone really means you have a series of sophisticated computer apps or programs at your finger tips where ever you are. Cellular telephone service, email, web searches and texting are always available.

So what else is new you say?  Well if the new normal is roving everywhere with a small computer in your hand or pocket then I say that is a profound change for society. These techniques are possibly changing our cognition and how we view our contemporary social environment.

The first observable change I see is how smart phone users interact with real humans. If the phone indicates a text or call is coming in that trumps talking to a real human. Real humans can be put on a type of limbo hold while the smart phone user deals with a text message, Tweet or a call.

Jobs are now 24/7. Bosses think nothing of emailing and texting employees outside of  9-5 business hours. If a smart phone user is "unavailable" then the person trying to contact them is put out. Therefore many smart phone users are always available to friends, family and especially their bosses. 

If a boss contacts you then it is important today to respond on your time. Work is also now portable and 24/7. Many more hours of work are chocked up this way. Personal time is depleted by constant communication. Many companies provide smart phones for this very purpose.

Then there is the attention span issue. I know twenty somethings who work on their computer, talk to humans and answer their smart phones all at the same time. They multitask and life is a series of Tweets, texts, real humans and work. They are never fully focused on any moment because any part of their communications network can interrupt their current activity. They even eat with their smart phone on.

As I said in a earlier piece this creates mini-celebrity. The multi-tasker is at the centre of all this attention and therefore doles out time dollops as needed to the smart phone and the real humans that are sharing that moment. There is a lot of being placed on hold in such a lifestyle. To complete a task means going through a series of interruptions that interlope constantly in real time. 

Users talk to humans, ring, answer phone, text a reply, then go back to real human conversation, look up a movie time on the internet that came from the email and then maybe finish the real human conversation if the attention span hasn't fallen victim to the process.

This situation I believe destroys linear continuity of the old pre smart phone world. It replaces it with a multitasked outcome which by its nature have a different goal or no goal at all. No longer is there a beginning, middle and an end. It is replaced by mini and even micro events that in some cases have a beginning and may have a middle waiting for an answer in cyberspace set between two other messages.  The linear world of old with a beginning middle and end is a fleeting experience. 

The nature of electronic communications technique is the fragmentation of life as we know it. If you can be found anywhere anytime 24/7 then you get a bit here and a bit there and only infrequently does it all come together. Fragmented input and output from constant information bombardment destroys communication continuity.

Life once knew the joy of a story that was told without interruption and these stories all had a linear beginnings, middles and ends. Now we live with dollops of data and information that infrequently never tell a full story or contain any substance. 

Human interaction is now what can be packaged in 140 text characters or spelled out with two thumbs in a semi literate text message such as "2day u hav 2 lern txting". It's a time where the linear world of print, film and television is being replaced by the multitask world of 24/7 highly personal communication. It is the cult of the mini-celebrity.

Already we are seeing movies where the plots cannot be advanced without the use of smart devices. The technology is integrated already into popular culture. Characters in films are seen as smart users of these smart techniques. Popular culture reflects our times and reinforces the smart 24/7 world as normal.

Imagine the baby born in 2012. That child will grow up completely in a smart environment and that smart environment will be the new normal. How does this level of technique interface with our culture first and perhaps even our evolution as a high technology species?  That remains the open question. What are the effects of this world we have created?  In my view it is a nanosecond world where attention spans last about as long as a nanosecond. Remember, techniques define how human culture develops.

© Copyright 2012, Tom Thorne, All Rights Reserved.