Many young people find safety in the soothing world of ASMR videos – imagine if we could give them that in the real world | Emma Beddington

You will not think that deep diving on videos that rises in mud and entry of the head can be painful, but a recent study on ASMR content left me inhabited and also.

Asmr, for those who are not online in particular, is a type of content called a feeling that raises it in some viewers: Responding to independent sensory length linesA false scientific name of a fun ministry accompanied by a feeling of calm. If you are moderately online, you may know this as “those whisper and benefit from videos” – there is a lot, as well as scratching, mud and a gentle brush. But there is much more than that, as I discovered reading a report by Innovation Agency reveals realityIncluding sub -species that mimic physical touch. You can see Asmr-STS pretending to brush your hair, or your bridges for nits or wipe your “face”-camera-with a spitting finger (this is the total decisions).

Many young consumers say in ASMR Watch to calm feelings to be sunken By the outside world. A sub -group described the other feelings presented to them by videos: condolences, safety and feelings they are associated with. One of the fans explained that her mother was giving her her night massage; Now, watching the videos that overlap the head to sleep. “People love to feel care,” theoretically creative.

We all relate to calm and comfort from different things (potato chips and Chicken Here), but we are creatures that need physical contact; We are mammals, the main. It is a somewhat sad feeling, young people who use YouTube to evoke a feeling of intimate gestures of love, care and communication, and to search for what the report calls “a digital response to basic human needs … which would have previously happened through embodied experiences.”

I found myself wondering what “embodied experiences” that I would like to re -create. The first thing that comes to mind your dog, who died 18 months ago: rub the flexible silk for his ears between the finger and the thumb; The size of her hand on the dome of its small skull is anxious with the thumb and the middle finger; Suffering bald stains behind his ears. He immediately scratched his back in front of his background legs that made him hearts reflective. If we look at pictures of him, evoke the memories of another feeling: the roughness of his pink and black claw platforms; My hand runs along the stomach curve without hair. The rose flourishes on his chest where hair hair in different directions with fingers. I still remember how I felt, just.

Then there are larger and wonderful physical sensations about the birth and entry of my children; You are never an animal than that. I remember the stunning slide from the heels along my lower ribs from the inside; How did the sudden comic tingling of the sharp elbow felt. I will give a lot to feel it, for a moment, that single joy imposed. I would like to retrieve my younger son, who was wandering around my shoulder after feeding, extending his hand, and massaging the air bubble through his new baby.

But all of these things have been given: bathrooms and washing hair. Feel the feeling of hot bodies in stillness because they fall asleep against me. It is not only children: there is a way that the first expected kiss felt is completely inevitable and amazing. I will not feel the joy of running for running through Morland, the sweat of dowry and peat in my nose, to voice music from Curlews and Lapwings – very old, very afraid. My mother was young, but her love was felt by the giant. When I try to evoke what I felt to carry my cheek against her very soft, I can get there almost there, but not completely.

This is sad, but it is good. Physical sensations are strong and valuable because they are limited; No ASMR experience or an overwhelming VR experience can be approached, and it is best to get the memory from the Ersatz version anyway. We live and feel these moments, then honor them and keep them alive by losing what they felt. But we also continue to stick, touch the people and the creatures we love, and this means that we always put new communication memories of contact. Perhaps someone should be whispering?

Emma Bedington, a guardian writer