The Importance of Interpersonal Touch

Touch is the first human sense to develop and our most fundamental way of establishing contact with our surroundings. This paper focuses on the critical role touch plays in our health and explores the negative impacts of being deprived of touch as we age. We first experience touch within our mothers' wombs and later through parental care after we are born. The significance of this experience is illustrated through monkey studies, where the importance of frequent interpersonal touch is shown to play a big part in the mental and physical well-being of primates and in the depth of interpersonal relations. As we age, however, the amount of touch we receive tends to decrease, which can be linked to societal rules and expectations. As children get older, they start spending less time at home, where they get physical affection from their parents, and more time at school and eventually at work, where especially in western societies, "no touch" policies are prevalent. These circumstances result in touch-deprived human beings who are prone to loneliness, depression, and anxiety. This phenomenon of "touch starvation" was seen on a global scale during the COVID-19 pandemic, where individuals in isolation, especially the elderly, were either wholly deprived of touch or had to exclusively rely on the affection of pets to satisfy their innate human need for contact and connection with others.