Long before any of us could string a sentence together, we understood touch and spoke the language of touch and close personal contact.
A loving hug can make a huge difference. Picture iStock
You can talk all you like, but it may go in one ear and out another. Empathy and love are not always spoken in words or in WhatsApps. They are felt, which is why touch leaves such a lasting impression, both consciously and subconsciously. No amount of texting, video calling or conversation can replace it, research suggests.
However, because of overuse of the latter, we are missing out. We may be in touch, but we have lost contact. And this comes, experts say, at a cost, because we are only starting to realise how important touch is in a world where, well, frankly, it’s going missing in action.
It was your first language
Long before any of us could string a sentence together, we understood touch and spoke the language of touch and close personal contact. It is how babies first learn they are safe, and that instinct, ingrained since infancy, never really leaves us.
In a 2024 paper published in the journal Anthropology of Consciousness, researchers examining touch in a digitalised world wrote that touch needs no translation and no interpretation. A hand on the shoulder simply says, “I am here.” And that is the kind of universal connection everyone understands.
Bodies respond to touch
Touch is more than just a physical sensation. It is chemistry. In a paper for the New York-based research foundation the Garrison Institute, emotion scientist Dr Tracy Dennis-Tiwary cited research showing that holding a partner’s hand slows the brain’s threat response. Is that not incredible to contemplate?
Another study found that stressed teenagers who instant messaged their mothers released little to no oxytocin, the bonding hormone, while those who spoke to them or met them in person did receive a hit of the same. A hug, in other words, does the heavy emotional lifting that a WhatsApp voice note cannot.
The forgotten sense of digital life
Touch has been called the forgotten sense of the digital world. Yet, after a day of back-to-back messages, phone calls, voice notes and Zoom meetings, many of us feel hollowed out and exhausted. We have communicated plenty and connected very little. The distance is subtle, but it adds up over time. It may also help explain why meeting in person often feels more productive and meaningful than gathering online.
Touch can hold relationships together
Trust is not built on words only. In Psychology Today, psychotherapist Hugh Willard cited a meta-analysis from Germany’s Ruhr University which concluded that touch plays a significant role in supporting good physical and mental health. It is the handshake, the pat on the back and the hand held in a waiting room at the hospital, for example, that make relationships feel close rather than just existing. Experts say you can message someone every day and still feel like strangers because frequency of contact is not the same as physical closeness.
Touch moulds your personality
Developmental psychologists at Italy’s University of Padua, in a paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, wrote that touch is fundamental from birth. Children who grow up with consistent, nurturing contact regulate their emotions better, form stronger attachments and manage stress more easily as adults.
This is not something we outgrow because it forms the foundation we continue building on throughout life. Touch is not simply a nice-to-have. Evidence from multiple studies suggests it is a basic human need that never expires, no matter our life stage.
