“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”
This famous Stanley Gordon West quote will no longer make sense to a new generation of
mask-wearing youngsters who are missing out on that powerful human gesture.
We’re living in a virtual reality where technology has literally taken over and communicating face to face is now considered the enemy – at all costs, we must avoid potential virus carriers.
We’re doing away with touch and talk and the power of communication as we shield ourselves from all other humans.
When masks become mandatory in public spaces, it’ll be the death of social interaction as we know it.
Smiling is like a social lubricant, it eases awkwardness, in dubious moments when you meet humans for the first time, smiling can
eradicate anxiety. If we can’t greet people with a smile, how do we communicate? How do we flirt? How do we navigate the world?
Masks are essential, but they’re also a symbol of a new world order where smiling from the eyes is all that’s left and the art of small talk is dead.
It’s heartbreaking to think of how much loneliness the act of wearing a mask will now create.
For some, speaking to that one person in the shop or the post office may be the only time they get to talk to another human being all week and to think that this will disappear.
We are being encouraged to treat other humans as potential virus carriers, to almost look at others as dirty – it’s the scariest of all for older people, who have been made to feel scared of their own shadow.
Yes, we’re living through a pandemic, but our elders are living in fear and now robbed of touch and gesture, they’re spiralling into depression rapidly.
If you recall when the banks moved more online our elders were distraught as chatting to the bank clerk was a welcome break from staring at the four walls.
My nana, God rest her soul, would talk about her daily walk to the shop to meet a few familiar faces – now those faces are shrouded in mystery and unavailable to engage. Covid has meant mandatory mask-wearing will shield these lonely souls from any form of chit-chat, from a break from their empty nest.
Twenty-four hours can seem like an eternity when you’ve not spoken or had human touch all day.
Shaking hands was all about touch and that’s no longer appropriate – it’s almost considered disgusting now.
A social recession is upon us now where a collapse in contact will hit older and more vulnerable people the most.
We have a duty to limit the social damage the virus will cause too.
The hair salon was once the place where we’d unload all our problems on to our stylist, like some kind of counsellor.
For lonely older folk, it may have been the one time in the week they got to have a decent conversation as they relaxed getting their blow dry.
The mask has done away with all of that now.
A new report conducted by the US national academies of sciences found social isolation has been associated with an increased risk of dying from all causes.
The report deduced a 50% increased risk of contracting dementia, a 29% increased risk of incident coronary heart disease, a 25% increased risk of cancer mortality, a 59% increased risk of functional decline and a 32% risk of stroke.
So if Covid doesn’t get you, it looks like loneliness will be the death of us in the end.
I wonder which fate is worse?
