Prince Harry reflects on ‘painful’ lessons of the ‘past five years’ in emotional speech | Royal | News
Prince Harry gave a powerful speech in New York on World Mental Health Day, warning about the impact of social media on young people. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex spent two days in New York on Thursday and Friday, receiving awards for their humanitarian work and attending the Project Healthy Minds World Mental Health Day Festival.
On Friday, Harry spoke at the Project Healthy Minds event and claimed that the digital world is “fundamentally changing the way we experience reality.” In his speech, he evaluated the five years since the beginning of the epidemic and talked about the lessons learned since then. Harry said: “The past five years have taught us painfully that crises rarely come alone.
“The global pandemic has stripped away the mundane scaffolding of life and caused a measurable increase in anxiety, depression, and loss of connection. War and displacement, from Ukraine to Gaza, Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and many places in between, have created ripples of trauma for those defending their country and way of life, for civilians, and for families forced to flee.”
Speaking about the widespread nature of mental health issues, he added: “These are not separate problems for separate people.
“These are interconnected wounds for our global community. Mental health is shaped by public health, foreign policy, climate policy, institutional design and economic choices.
“Often, decisions made by a few powerful actors reverberate across the planet and into every aspect of our lives.”
He said the digital world has “fundamentally changed the way we experience reality – young people are exposed to relentless comparisons, harassment, misinformation and an attention economy designed to keep us scrolling at the expense of sleep and real human contact.”
Meanwhile, Meghan spoke about the couple’s charity, the Archewell Foundation, and its work with families affected by the harms of social media, and said healing depends on shared experience rather than isolation.
Meghan said the Archewell Foundation is meeting with families whose lives have been devastated by social media-related suicide.
He emphasized that bereaved parents need more than traditional therapy, saying: “Parents who lost their children to social media didn’t just need therapy; they also needed other parents who understood their particular pain.
“When these parents came together, they weren’t just sharing stories, they were creating a movement.”
He added: “While the research is serious, solutions can be achieved, especially when parents, advocates and communities come together.”
Harry and Meghan’s comments come a day after the Princess of Wales warned of the “epidemic of disconnection” created by smartphones and other devices.
In an article she wrote with Professor Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, Kate expressed her concerns about the problems posed by modern technology at the expense of family life.
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