An example of this could be walking on a slippery surface, your shoes grip until a threshhold is reached where you slip and increased speed seems to reduce the friction. I imagine it like tiny bumps that repel the surface of the shoe so that there is less net contact. Or is that the second hypothesis in the article? The relationship between speed and friction is discussed here, also: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/29561/does-frict...
This article doesn't address the forcing of children to hug. I think that children should have autonomy over their own bodies, as a preamble to intimate encounters later on in life. I would speculate that reverting back to traditional expectations around bodily contact with family/otherwise for children could just further exascerbate the problem. I think instead we need more demonstration of appropriate touching and demystifying what I see to be necessary caution about the innappropriate, unwanted or otherwise abusive kind of touching. Plus if touching is good for health and wellbeing this should be taught. I can think of other reasons why bodily contact is on the decline, such as the increased accessibility of other people without having to be in their presence. Media spin possibly has us frightened, where we now obstain from a gentle arm tap for emphasis, or shying away from offering a hug to someone in distress. Perhaps having a hug offering rejected is too much for people when they could just open messenger and send an emoji instead?
Didn't even think of that. I still find instant messaging to be disruptive to my own work, but you're right: People would just find me and get up in my business if I couldn't dismiss them with a flick of the wrist.
I'm not sure how effective or distributed the best knowledgebase softwares are (ours is OneNote and it isn't working IMO), but I think having the knowledge at your fingertips would be far less distracting than a minimum of two people occupying each other's mental resources long enough to exchange IP. Then what if people leave and take the IP with them. Have there been studies specifically measuring distractability or overall work performance with/without distracting instant messaging...? I'm not convinced these IM tools are the answer, but maybe with some sort of "Guide"/KB integration coupled with ML.
Surely this just isn't even practical, even if it does pass... if the filter has to be installed on the end user device it will be widely known how to bypass it. Why do people even write these rediculous things (the bills in question).