Can 'free hugs' improve society?

How interesting that you would put up this topic today. I was just talking about an experiment that was done a while back in school where we were told to go around the school and randomly give out hugs to people. Before we hugged the person we had to ask their permission and get their names and phone numbers for a follow up. Then we hugged them. Total strangers hugging each other. Then we turned in our names and numbers and another student called them at the end of hte day to discuss how they felt about getting the hug and how they felt afterwards. Of the 432 people hugged that day only 4 reported that they didn't feel anything afterwards. All 432 thought it was wierd to have a total stranger come up and offer them a hug. 428 people reported that they felt really good and happy the rest of day after getting hugged. One girl said that she had been feeling kinda down before the hug, but actually felt better after getting hugged by a stranger. The most interesting things were the responses from the guys. Almost all the guys said that is was totally unexpected, but really welcomed. A few guys said that it made them feel like people really do care about each other even if they don't know each other. One guy said that just having another human being hug him for no reason made him feel like someone cared about him and it made his feel good the rest of the day. Our teacher said that this experiment just proved that a simple human touch like a hug has a huge impact on how we feel about ourselves and what is going on in the world around us. It makes us aware that we are not alone in this world and that even if we are hurting or upset, that having a stranger give us such a simple thing can really encourage us and change our mood for the rest of the day. So then the teacher told us to go out there and make sure that we hug at least 5 people a day. I personally think that if we gave out more hugs and less handshakes it would make our world a better place. When you hug someone, you have to give them a little bit of yourself and they in turn give you a bit of themselves. When we learn to love our fellow man, then maybe the world will be better for everyone.

I don't think that I would be comfortable with being hugged a lot by strangers. There are a lot of really weird and sick people in the world and they could be hugging you.