New Englandah here. More or less the same upbringing you describe, where intimate touch is reserved for sexual partners and family members. I don't agree, though, that it's made my life materially worse in any way, and articles like OP actively give me the
heeby jeebies. I find touchy-feely people and the West Coast hugs newage (rhymes with sewage) quasi-surf-brah culture to be generally fake and creepy. Yeah, you have to hug babies or they come out broken: that doesn't mean you have to hug everyone all the time, or that grown adults have some USRDA specified minimum required human touch. The idea that there are people so lonely and isolated that they pine for hugs is, of course, deeply sad, but that's a problem with loneliness; not some mechanical need that can be fulfilled the way you can cure a vitamin deficiency by popping a pill, which is certainly what this article implies. Random people, including (perhaps especially including) very lonely people invading my space are not appreciated.
The article itself is filled with ridiculous pleonasms and nonsense statements:
>The language of touch also affects the way that we relate to ourselves and our bodies across the lifespan, with profound impacts on our psychological wellbeing
WTF does this even mean? Followed by "citations needed."
>As a scientist, but also as a fellow human, I claim the right to touch, and to dream of a reality where no one will be touchless.
Get away from me creepy science lady!
In all seriousness, this is article is a load of West Coast american New Age horse shit. There are entire cultures of no-touchy people: for example, the Nordics, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese. They tend to be more long-lived, happy and vastly more free of mental illness than West Coast Americanos who gabble on about muh therapeutic touch (and who also post HN articles about the mystical wisdom of .... Nordics and Japanese when it comes to their ancient and mysterious customs such as going outside sometimes[0][1]). There's something infantile and needy about over-touchers. Cultures which have different conceptions of shared space (I dunno southern Europeans, Arabs) also have plenty of boundaries -the touchy feely types don't, and I think the latter are the ones with problems.
Lonely people: if you have something that prevents you from making friends in the ordinary way, please buy a dog or something and leave us non-touchy feely people alone.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20877796
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24886440