Tracking changes in touch desire and touch avoidance before and after the COVID-19 outbreak

ABSTRACT: Touch is essential for survival, social bonding, and overall health. However, the COVID-19 pandemic calls for an abrupt withdrawal from physical contact, and the prolonged lockdown has left many people in solitude without touch for months. This unprecedented dissociation from touch has cast a shadow on people's mental and physical well-being. Here we approached the issue by examining COVID-19's impact on people's touch attitudes. We analyzed people's desire and avoidance for animate and inanimate targets based on large-scale Japanese Twitter posts over an 8-year span. We analyzed the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak with the difference-in-differences estimation method, which can estimate the impact while accounting for other changes over time such as seasonality or long-term effects. As a r

SUBMITTER: Ujitoko Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9751362 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature