Put it there!
Ah, wait.
Have you washed your hands?
Umm,
I may have some hand sanitizer.
We’ve been shaking hands since
as early as 1800 BCE,
when we thought we could absorb
the gods’ power.
Well, we’re absorbing something alright.
Research has shown that we have
over 3,000 bacteria on our hands,
including fecal matter,
from 150 different species.
Gross.
To make matters worse,
the average person shakes hands
15,000 times in their lifetime.
So, what if
we stopped shaking hands altogether?
It’s believed that shaking hands
started as a gesture to show
you meant no harm to others.
This was done by reaching out the right hand
where your weapon would normally be,
and showing that it was empty.
The classic hand movement of up and down
could have been a way to show there were
no knives or daggers hidden on the arm.
See? Nothing up my sleeve.
Since then,
it’s become a gesture of good faith
and commitment,
often used when closing a deal.
And that’s just scratching the surface
of why we shake hands.
Cultures around the world have
different variations of who shakes hands
and how,
but all involve getting touchy-feely,
which isn’t doing much good for our health.
When we shake hands,
and our hands have large amounts of bacteria
or viruses on them,
we spread the bacteria or viruses
to the people we shake hands with.
This increases the chances
of people getting sick.
But let’s say you just washed your hands.
Great!
But it doesn’t mean much
if the other person didn’t.
So the bacteria-train keeps on chugging.
The transmission of common colds
and the flu
have both been linked to handshakes.
And the longer the handshake,
the higher the odds of catching something.
Most doctors agree
that cutting out handshakes
would hugely benefit our health.
But is it that easy?
We’re not just taking away a gesture.
We’re taking away a concept
that’s been ingrained in our cultures
for centuries.
So, we need to find a replacement.
What if we lived in a world where,
after you secured a multi-billion dollar deal,
everyone in the meeting high-fived?
Well, good news.
High fives transmit half as much bacteria
as a standard handshake.
And if you want to really seal the deal,
fist bumps transmit even fewer bacteria.
What if our greetings
didn’t involve touching at all?
Hmmm,
That wouldn't work for me.
I'm a hugger!
What if, in the future,
we just tipped our hats?
No, we’d need to bring top hats
back into fashion for that.
What about saluting?
Or the peace sign
that was all the rage in the 60s, man?
We could bow,
wave,
or do the namaste ritual.
If it were up to us,
we’d be using the Vulcan
“live long and prosper” gesture.
"That hurts worse than the uniform."
So could we do it?
Sure we could.
Researchers at Carleton University in Ottawa
say that we’re living in a time of
heightened disease awareness
called a "pandemic culture".
It’s changing the way we behave in public,
interact with each other,
and it's making us aware that
everything we touch
is covered in microbes.
So, how would we get people
to stop shaking hands?
Well, consider this.
Smoking used to be a cultural norm,
but as research showed its health risks,
and public education campaigns educated us
about the dangers of smoking,
the norm changed.
Not smoking is now the cultural norm.
What if we used this model
to change people’s tendency to shake hands
into some other form of greeting?
Mass media and the internet
would make it easy to spread information
about the danger of shaking hands.
This would encourage people
to adopt other practices.
Agencies such as the United Nations,
the World Health Organization,
and the Centers for Disease Control
could agree on practices
to replace handshakes that would
transmit less bacteria
and viruses between people.
And if we really wanted to guarantee
that people would change their greetings,
legislation could discourage
or downright prohibit
the use of handshakes.
We know that we need a way
to connect with each other.
The physical contact of shaking hands
is a tried and true method
used in both formal
and informal situations.
But there are other ways we can connect,
assess each other,
and indicate genuine intentions.
If we stopped shaking hands,
it would be safer for everyone.
But why stop at handshakes?
There are plenty of other ways
that germs spread.
What if we went to the extreme,
and held in every single one of our sneezes?
Well, that’s a story for another WHAT IF.