GETTING BACK IN TOUCH
If you could reach out for anyone’s hand right now, whose would it be? The small, sticky squeeze of your just-walking niece? Maybe it’s the interlocked fingers of a successful fourth date, the stroke of your grandma’s satin skin or the firm handshake that says the job is finally yours. Well, whichever palm you pick, we suspect you’ve now given the question a great deal more thought than you would have done a few years ago, when your biggest social contact dilemma was whether someone was going in for one cheek kiss or two.
It was only when the world lost touch at the start of the pandemic that people realised the power of all things tactile to convey emotion profoundly, meaning instantly and comfort deeply. In the many months since, reams of data have sought to prove what you’ve probably felt for yourself at one stage or another: that touch isn’t just nice to have, it’s essential to your physical and emotional health. So, what has losing touch taught us about having it?
The award for the most prophetic piece of research published in 2020 goes to those behind The Touch Test – a large
