#touch-deprivation

[happyandticklish]

May I ask, what article did you read? I'm curious

I believe I first found out about it from a podcast I was listening to, Our Plague Year by Joseph Fink, and then I looked it up to confirm it because I found that to be the cutest phenomenon in human beings. There I found a couple articles, some by The New York Times, some by Healthline, though I don't remember their names. I also found another article by The Good Trades that recommended methods to help with touch-deprivation, one of which was self-massaging and rubbing your skin to imitate another person's touch.

I then asked a couple of my friends (excluding the tickling part of course) and they all said they had experienced it too.

I also discovered that apparently the USA has the lowest numbers of casual physical touch, and that touch-deprivation is most common in young adults.

I hope that helped! :)

[loving-touch-avant-garde]

“Individuals with low touch exposure... rate touch... as less pleasant...”

Individuals with low touch exposure were comparable to controls in sensory aspects of touch, such as tactile sensitivity and the perceived intensity of stimulation; however, they differed regarding the hedonic aspects of touch. Contrary to our hypothesis, they did not rate touch as more pleasant than controls, but as less pleasant, in particular when it was given at CT-optimal velocities. 

Exposure shapes the perception of affective touch. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319022627_Exposure_shapes_the_perception_of_affective_touch 

(CT-optimal velocities = the normal speed of a caress)

This is the same thing everyone always reports, that touch is less pleasant when you’re touch-deprived. What’s most interesting to me is that the researchers are surprised-- it’s “contrary to [their] hypothesis”-- why? Who did they talk to to form that strange hypothesis? Hmm.