There's a woman I see most days whom I don't really like. I've never said a word to her and she hasn't said a word to me but I've not warmed to her. I'm not hostile but I can tell she's not my type.

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I kept asking myself why, and realised it was because of tiny gestures I hadn't even known I'd noticed: she doesn't engage with the bus driver; she has sharp elbows in the queue.

We work out who we like in a myriad subtle ways: how they react to unimportant people; whether they talk too much about themselves; whether they look at themselves too much in the mirror in the lift; do they have a sense of humour?

Humour, of course, is important: Do potential friends or lovers laugh in a loud mirthless way at crass jokes? Do they smile at quiet wit? Do they smile with their eyes or (a real giveaway) only with their mouths?

But in a world where we engage each other on screens, these small but important signs are missed. We don't learn how to assess people. We don't learn how to make relationships.

And that starts when we are young. Children learn how to read faces and body language - but too much time on screen inhibits that essential education for life.

So an authoritative report titled The complex relationship between screen time and child development is grist to my mill. It confirms that children need real, face-to-face relationships. Adults do, too, but let's stick with children.

"Children under two generally don't learn new words and skills from watching screens," the lead researcher Sheri Madigan, professor of psychology at the University of Calgary in Canada, said.

"At this age, they are rapidly developing foundational skills, like learning........

© Canberra Times