BLOG: The Science of Kissing, What Our Lips Are Telling Us by Sheril Kirshenbaum says “A good deal of the scientific literature speculates that kissing may have evolved to help us choose a suitable partner, or to realize when a match is a bad idea…The exchange of olfactory, tactile, and postural information might trigger unconscious mechanisms that guide us in deciding whether we should continue, and a kiss might even tell us about a potential partner’s level of commitment and genetic compatibility.”
Now let’s consider what could be meant by “postural information”. When we’re using our phones, what tends to happen is that we make ourselves shorter. This is a common habit, that when we want to reach to look at something or kiss someone, we push the face forward and press the head back and down into the spine. Compressing the head and neck is different from tilting the head, which is is possible to do just by tipping it back and not over-tightening the muscles in the back of the neck.
“Kissing presents some interesting kinaesthetic challenges. A tall partner tends to stoop and reach down to the shorter one, misusing himself (or herself) in the process. Unwittingly, the shorter partner aggravates the problem by making herself (or himself) shorter still.” – The Alexander Technique, A Skill for Life, by Pedro de Alcantara