People are beginning to prefer no human contact, it seems to me. Not just the mobile phone thing, but the germophobe stuff and choosing to send a text rather than risk catching someone actually live on their mobile phone.
The germophobe thing is odd enough. When did we become so prissy about germs? I think it is based on the lack of actually touching anything. Included in this is the growing need or expectation to be nearly hairless (especially expected of women).
Life is messy. Our food is grown in dirt (not always now, but that is still the basic element). We walk on paved roads, cemented sidewalks and there are people who have not seen a field of grass or the vast ocean. Why are we getting so pristine and yet distancing ourselves farther from the natural, real world?
People will get all upset about a small insect, like a spider, spray the poor creature with all manner of pesticide, cleaning solutions and other substances which we would not want to have in our air…. yet all that is forgotten in the need to kill one insect… without letting it touch us. What do you really expect it to do? Most of them don’t bite and are very vulnerable to things like shoes and rolled up newspapers. Or just pick them up and push them outside.
No one likes to give someone bad news but it seems this has now grown into no one likes to talk to anyone, in real time, at all. Text messaging replaces actual conversation.
But, the funniest thing to me is the fear of contamination. From people who will not touch the door handle for fear of germs and yet… they use the washroom and don’t wash their hands. Fear of touching the soap, fear of touching the paper towels dispenser… and yet, you could use the soap and water to wash all that off your hands. Instead they live with all the germs and are contaminated all day, spreading it to everyone and everything they come into contact with. Maybe they remember to wash when they get home. I hope so. If they wait until the morning shower… that’s a lot of contamination spread around from a full day of picking up germs.
It’s been proven that we need human touch. People talk more about love and trade “love you”s more than they did 20 years ago. But, they say it too much and too easily I think. How can you mean someone if you say it so easily and lightly? Saying “love you” should be special, not so commonplace.
Also, the hugging phenomenon. How many people have told you “I’m a hugger” before they envelop you? Why not just shake hands? Or the modern version, the elbow bump.
Human touch is complicated, for those who want it and those who don’t.
The sterile scent still in his nostrils triggers his realization: He can’t remember when he was last in physical company.
via Zoe Goodacre: Always In Touch, But Forever Alone [100 Words Into The Future] – Forbes.