This BBC video reports that "Texting" along with one of my favorite subjects (can you detect heavy sarcasm?) "Political Correctness" are among reasons being blamed for people not getting enough cuddles. "Cuddles" is their word (it's the BBC and it sounds kinda cute with the accent) but if you're more comfortable we can call them hugs.
I hope everyone can see the irony in using an impersonal electronic medium to deliver the message about impersonal electronic media contributing to the decline of actual and desperately needed human contact. Together with rampant over-reactionism and rising puritanism this will have us self-flagellating in stone cells, donning hair-shirts and communicating by scribing 21st century hieroglyphic emoticons on plasma screens with papyrus backgrounds. The only live human contact will be with the UPS guy delivering food that you bought from Ebazon.com.
Hugging is an underrated and under appreciated form of expression and contact. In perusing the internet I found dozens of stories covering the health benefits of hugging. There was even one on the terminally uncuddly Fox News (I guess it was part of that "fair and balanced" thing). There are also dozens of stories about the increasing trend in schools to ban ALL physical contact between students, including hugging. I can understand the concern over inappropriate contact but I'm not sure banning all forms of touching and suspending elementary school students for hugging classmates is the way to go. Something about a baby and bathwater?
I'm half Italian and I'm demonstrative. In general I like hugging but like everything else it can be good or bad. My wife got home yesterday from being out of town. When I walked through the door after work and hugged her for the first time in four days it felt wonderful indeed and I didn't want to let her go. On the other hand a hug at the wrong time and/or from the wrong person and there can be some serious squirming. I had a manager a few years back that insisted on hugging every one of her employees when she handed them their paycheck. If I had liked her I wouldn't have minded so much. But she was the kind of person that made me worry that there would be a knife going between my shoulder blades during the hug so it made me just a skosh uncomfortable. Well, that plus the fact that she bought her perfume in five-gallon buckets and doused herself with it everyday so after the hug you walked away smelling like a old syphilitic french whore, but I digress.
Since this is an electronic message I could be tempted to give you all a great big CYBER HUG {{{{{{}}}}}} and tell you to pass it on. But fuck that. Step away from the computer and go give somebody a real one.