How About a Hug?
The New York Times reports today on an increase in hugging among teens. The article’s author, Sarah Kershaw, says this,Â
Some parents find it paradoxical that a generation so steeped in hands-off virtual communication would be so eager to hug.
Fascinating. This observation speaks to something I’ve recognized among my son’s peer group, as well as adult friends involved in on-line community formation. Virtual tools are keeping us more connected, not less. Our face-to-face community is enhanced by staying in virtual contact when we’re not physically together. The synergy of combined F2F and virtual community is proving to be far more generative than one without the other.
The question is not “should I use social technology.” The question is “how do I integrate technology in a healthy, balanced manner that positively augments personal and communal experience.”
A seamless social interplay of virtuality and physicality has become second nature to our kids – the digital natives. Why not us?
June 21st, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Good post John…I had considering doing a post on this article as well – the up-and-coming cultural implications are very interesting. Whatever the motivators that have led to this, physical contact (particularly close contact like a hug) is a strong biological signifier of community – for both sexes to be warming up to this, I think, bodes well for this age group and their future.
You also note the social technology aspect…appreciate your angle contrary to what seems to be the more-default position these days of negating its positives due to its negatives. I recently read Updike’s Rabbit Run and I was struck with the ease that Rabbit simply left his community one evening – very few forms of communication would he be reachable by, simply by him driving away… — Sometimes I wonder if the recent advances in our communication via modern telephony (”telephony”? classy) and the web is a way of our communication ‘catching up’ to other aspects of Modernity, as it effects us humans – social, communal creatures. Solitude and loneliness have been cornerstones of our agitation with the modern world; in the very least the rapid spread of new ways to communicate (and being utilized) seems to have increased the nodes that the global community (and by extension, the national community, the local, the family & friend) is being knit through. What’s happening now in Iran is a pretty amazing demonstration of this.
Found your blog through a Long Now blog comment – look forward to looking around some more!
Best,
Brett