CREEDE HINSHAW: Automatic faucets a sign of separation

If you are in a group where conversation is lagging, I have a topic guaranteed to produce a few good stories.

Ask your friends how they like using the faucets with sensors in public restrooms. I tried this topic out on a group earlier this week. The energy level in the room quickly increased because everybody had a story or a complaint.

I am referring to these faucets with no handles. They have sensors in them that, theoretically, release water from the tap when a person waves the hands beneath the faucet.

Never mind that the user has no control over water temperature. Never mind that the user has no control over how forcefully the water flows from the spigot.

Recently I used a sink with water pressure so high that upon emerging from the room I almost needed to explain to others why my clothing was wet.

The problem with most of these contraptions, both towel dispensers and faucets, is that one never knows exactly where to wave the hands or whether the device works. I’ve been in restrooms where I moved down a row of sinks one after the other, helplessly and harmlessly waving beneath each faucet to no effect.

Maybe President Trump can declare an executive order fixing this problem. He could call it “Making American Sinks Great Again.”

Here’s where I shift from a petty complaint to a sociological observation. The fact that sinks no longer have hot and cold handles and towel dispensers no longer have little metal hand cranks is one more small sign that public life is disintegrating. We’re so afraid of each other and each other’s germs that we dare not touch something that has previously been touched by somebody else.

I could have written the same column about the prevalence of hand sanitizers in the grocery store or spray bottles and towels at the health club. Are we becoming germaphobes? Are we that afraid of each other?

I love sanitary public spaces as well as the next person, but one can’t help but wondering if we’ve gone one step too far in all of this. We didn’t used to be so squeamish of each other.

A few years ago, sociologist Robert Putnam wrote the best-selling “Bowling Alone,” a book that pulled together data from numerous sources to make the point that the social fabric of our nation is disintegrating. Among other markers, he noted that participation in bowling leagues has dramatically declined in recent decades.

Americans, he contended, are less interested in being together.

If Putnam can build his thesis around what is happening in bowling alleys, perhaps I can make the same case by suggesting that crankless towel dispensers and handleless sinks prove we’re coming apart.

A strong and healthy country rests upon a vibrant social and community life. Do we trust each other any more? I’m not so sure. In church, school and public life, we seem to be moving further apart.

Email columnist Creede Hinshaw, a retired Methodist minister, at [email protected].