Meghan Markle Opens Up About the Pitfalls of Social Media

Before she married Prince Harry, the Duchess of Sussex was known for her lively social media presence: pictures of food, friends, flowers (and even a cryptic post of two bananas). Although she’s since deleted her personal accounts—something of a royal requirement—she still spoke out about the platforms during her royal tour of New Zealand.

“You see photos on social media and you don’t know whether she’s born with it or maybe it’s a filter,” she told a group from Live for Tomorrow, an online youth program aimed at spreading positive messages. “Your judgement of your sense of self-worth becomes really skewed when it’s all based on likes.”

Prince Harry also chimed in. “Issues stemming from social media and gaming are a major problem for young people in the U.K.—and globally,” he said. “Fingers are often pointed at the parents but that’s not always fair as they, too, need to be educated about these things.”

It’s not the first time that the Duchess has spoken out about life post-social media. Last week, she told a royal fan that she found it “freeing” to be less involved with the platforms.

Key word: less. Harry and Meghan delighted royal watchers on this tour when they made personal posts on Kensington Palace’s accounts. On Twitter, the Duchess posted a picture of Prince Harry speaking at the Invictus Games.

https://twitter.com/KensingtonRoyal/status/1056089394732363776

A few days later, on Instagram stories, Kensington Palace shared an aerial photo of New Zealand. “Traveling to the beautiful Abel Tasman National Park,” it said. Then, it listed “The Duke of Sussex” as photo credit.

Groundbreaking? Not exactly. But the Kensington Palace social media accounts don’t tend to post directly from the Dukes and Duchesses themselves. (A fun exception was during the World Cup, when the Duke of Cambridge sent personal tweets cheering on England.)

So, although Markle says she’s content with her choice to delete her personal accounts, it seems she and Harry are practicing the golden rule: everything in moderation.