What the producers of Modem Monks did was interview people on the island over a period of days. They made observations about the Monastery, the geography of the island, its climate and relation to the main land. While the research they did wasn’t exactly ‘scientific’, it has certain similarity to some of the approaches that a social scientist might take.

So, based on what the programme shows, what can we say in answer to these two key questions?

In one sense, the Monks’ rural isolation hasn’t changed: the island hasn’t moved anywhere and the Monks don’t leave the island on any regular basis. But, as the programme showed, the Abbot has made contact with other groups of Cistercian monks using email and that the new website is hoped to bring new buyers to the Monks’ mail order business. In addition, the Monks use phones and the Internet which bring them different kinds of news from the ‘outside’ world. So, while the Monks aren’t ‘going’ anywhere, there is, apparently, more of the world coming to them. This might suggest they are less isolated in some ways, but the picture is not yet clear.

The second question ...