The Princess of Wales has warned that an overload of smartphones and computer screens is creating an “epidemic of disconnection” that disrupts family life.
“While digital devices promise to keep us connected, they frequently do the opposite,” writes Catherine, in an essay written in collaboration with Prof Robert Waldinger from Harvard Medical School.
Catherine says smartphones and gadgets have become a “constant distraction, fragmenting our focus” and undermining the time that families spend together.
“We’re physically present but mentally absent, unable to fully engage with the people right in front of us,” writes the princess, in an essay that’s part of her early years education campaign.
The princess says that research evidence shows the importance of creating healthy and warm relationships within families and between people, with lifelong benefits for physical and mental health.
But she warns, in an essay The Power of Human Connection in a Distracted World, that social trends are going in the opposite direction and that there are more lonely, isolated people and that families are not giving each other adequate attention.
“When we check our phones during conversations, scroll through social media during family dinners, or respond to e-mails while playing with our children, we’re not just being distracted, we are withdrawing the basic form of love that human connection requires,” she writes.
This is a particularly acute challenge for today’s children who are in a “world immersed in digital technology”, says Catherine.
Her husband Prince William, in a conversation on an Apple TV+ show, recently said that none of their three children were allowed to have smartphones.
In her essay published on the website of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, Catherine says that children need to be encouraged to develop social and emotional skills, which will help them throughout their lives.
But that can be impeded by a “world filled with technological distractions”, she argues.
“We’re raising a generation that may be more ‘connected’ than any in history while simultaneously being more isolated, more lonely, and less equipped to form the warm, meaningful relationships that research tells us are the foundation of a healthy life,” she writes.
On Thursday, Catherine discussed some of these issues about family relationships on a visit to the Home-Start centre in Oxford, a charity which supports families and their young children.
She played with small children at the centre, including a young girl who tipped out a tray of flour perilously close to where the princess was sitting. The princess joked the “messier it is, the better the fun”.
The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood was launched in 2021, with the aim of raising awareness and gathering research evidence about the importance of children’s first years.
