Research Report from the University of the Third Digital Age.
Commissioned by the People’s Directorate for Scotland, an agency of the Northern European Region.
The purpose of this research was to use digital social media artifacts to explore and understand life in the former village of East Lanark (now part of the Greater Edinburgh Collective) at the start of the 21st century.
‘According to the last national census that was held in 2041, the population of the village was 3000. 37% of the village was aged over 65; 49% were aged 16 to 65. 5% were aged 5 to 15. Of the 9% aged under 5, a large number were being housed on a temporary basis due the large scale flooding that had taken place in Edinburgh and along the Forth estuary.
As a result of legislation, every adult over the age of 16 was legally obliged to have an online Smartbook account. It was only through their Smartbook pages that residents could apply for school places, receive benefits, have a bank account, etc.
The archive of those individual pages suggests that the area was prone to periods of verbal outbursts and violence (note: this is incomprehensible nowadays, given the use of AI to monitor such online behaviour and impose penalties).
The following examples are illuminating.
Convicted pedo seen mooching about the area again. Police need to pick up the perv before someone fucking does him in……he deserves it….fucking nonce……they are everywhere…..commenting for this post has been turned off.
Councillors are a fucking waste of space……all of the Tory and Labour ones are corrupt….they have been getting backhanders all over the place to allow house building to take place……fucking waste of space……camper van for sale, apply SNP HQ….note from researchers, unsure why that last message was tacked on to this discussion about politicians.
Did anyone hear my car alarm going off in the night….thieves stole the front of my Corsa…..it’s now useless…..I hear this has been happening in other parts of the village….note from researchers, there were lots of comments from villagers offering video doorbell footage but none of this appeared to show the culprits (the use of such video material was banned in 2060).
Has anyone seen my blue waste bin……it was stolen last night……I have been up and down the street looking for it……someone told me teenagers are stealing them, taking them down the burn, setting fire to them and sniffing the fumes…..note from researchers, there were many messages like this one; we checked digital records for the local Humsah Community Hospital, but could find no correlation between bin burning and teenagers being treated for smoke inhalation.
Hi guys, we had someone check on our car /house at 12.56 last night, this is what the cameras got. Does anyone recognise or has seen anything on their cameras? Flat bed truck pulls up and someone with head and hand touch comes and approaches our car and takes a look. It all takes no more than a minute…..note from researchers, there was quite a heated exchange around this, with many people saying they were afraid. Update, the man was a milkman (i.e. a man who delivers milk. We are unsure how this person defined their gender and are aware that such terms nowadays may cause offence and would indeed be illegal).
One Pagers 