While visiting a London school the Duchess of Cambridge spoke about the “addictive” nature of social media.
The Duchess visited Reach Academy in her first engagement of the year. She spoke to students about the challenges they face, and spoke about how the internet can easily become a “part of your lifestyle.”
She asked the teenagers whether or not they think that “social media puts a lot of pressure on young people?”
After listening to their stories, she spoke about her work with Heads Together. She said through her work she had found that social media “can get so addictive”
She also emphasised the positives that come from social media saying: “It’s hard to break away from that, but having the support and learning, the good ways of using social media, because it’s great in so many contexts, but it’s also being able to sort of monitor your own use of it as well, which is great.”
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Before meeting the teenagers she spent some time in the nursery, chatting to three and four-year-olds as well as meeting the school’s trainee therapy puppy. She awarded Bear, the therapy puppy, a rosette to mark the successful completion of his training.
The puppies owner, Karen Howard, who works as a support officer at the school said that the Duchess was “very interested to hear about therapy dogs and the children were telling her ‘the dog makes us really happy’.”
The school is a Place2Be partner school, a charity of which the Duchess of Cambridge is a patron of. Place2Be supports children’s mental health by providing emotional wellbeing support as well as mental health support to pupils, families, and staff.
The Duchess, who is pregnant with her third child, has emphasised the importance of kindness and honesty and the role they should play in our lives. She said personal values such as those are “just as important as excelling at maths or sport.”
