Name: What happens to humans when we can't touch? | BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2020-10-13T19:25:19.000Z
Duration: 5 min 38 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Human interpersonal touch is crucial. It's social glue.

Adverbs of manner

I think we underestimate how important touch actually is

Human touch is key to our survival. It's in our DNA.

There are probably 100 papers on vision for every one on touch.

Touch relies literally on the whole of our skin.

But what happens when we touch other people?

Touching other people is processed by the brain with different mechanisms.

We discovered very late - only in the 1990s -

that in humans we have a specialised set of cells in the skin,

which then travel with specialised pathways

And this system is called the C-Tactile System.

"You're in close physical contact with your best friend here."

And what that does in the brain is trigger the endorphin system.

We feel very relaxed, and - particularly important -

trusting in the person we're doing this activity with.

And that creates this sense of friendship.

Light, slow, stroking at exactly 2.5cm a second.

This is the caress that we are hard-wired to like.

So the cuddle sessions take place at one of the pods.

Cuddle therapy involves hugs, stroking, squeezes -

Yet it can actually have rather powerful effects on people.

It can stabilise their heart rate.  It can improve their weight gain.

And some studies for low birth weight babies

even suggest that the time they stay in hospital

can be reduced if they have lots of touch stimulation.

It's really forming the first part of social bonding.

Which is why I say if you really want to know how somebody feels about you,

don't listen to what they tell you, just feel how they touch you.

If we have a situation where we're not able to touch the people

in our daily lives that we normally touch,

it's not like everything is going to fall apart instantly.

But our feelings of connection, of empathy, of trust

So my biggest struggle is not being able to hug my mum, to wash her hair,

to do all the things that we do bonding - paint her nails,

I do her feet for her. That one broke my heart.

Still when I think about it, I could cry.

If you deprive an animal of touch, the animals become literally sick

both in the mind - they develop a lot of anxiety -

and also they live less, and they're less healthy in the long term.

The whole social concept of touch is really changing in society.

Does it feel like the pupils are learning not to touch?

When people during lockdown were exposed to films

where there was natural touch, people had a jump.

They started talking to the TV, "No, you can't do that!"

So that's a good sign of how quickly we learn to inhibit ourselves.

I don't think you'll see people interacting in the same way

I find it very unlikely that we would ever lose

You should never say never, when it comes to evolution.

But it will all depend on whether other forms of behaviour

that allow us to trigger the endorphin system in the brain

to create friendships, really start to work better

unless we give up all notion of having romantic relationships.

I think the future should be hugs - all day.