Untouched

What happens without touch? I heard on the radio this week that each person should get at least 4 hugs a day in order to just "survive", let alone thrive. Wow, I'm seriously in a deficit in that area. I should have claimed bankruptcy years ago. I imagine others would find themselves in the same predicament. No bonds are formed, no touch exists regularly, people reach out sporadically through technology, but it's not the same. Now when we hear the word technology we think of progress, moving forward in our day to day lives. But is moving forward really a good thing? Who actually defines what moving forward means? It seems that the more things become technologically advanced, the less people in general are needed, which in turn results in less interaction. You cannot reach a sales representative on the phone. People are eliminated from the retail equation because of self-checkouts. We can check in at a computer at the airport. Will the next step be for a robot to actually bring me my food at a restaurant? So not only in the work place where we conduct business, but in our social lives as well, it seems, there will be a lack of personal contact. No personal letters received. No phone calls made. We only text, send email, post "statuses". Short blips of info spewed out to a person, friends and acquaintances, the world. We are too busy going here, doing this, doing that, being "busy". What are we producing that on our death bed we can hold on to? Communication by text, facebook, computer...such plastic communication. Plastic is cold and hard and has no character. Gone are the days of the personal touch. We are raising the first generation of kids who may never receive a letter in the mail and who may never read a book "from cover to cover" because they have the Kindle. Wow, that truly scares me. What will this full technological age bring besides lots of those who are untouched?