Put down your phones, kids! Talk and hug instead, Kate tells the Instagram generation
KATE Winslet has urged children to ‘put down your phones’, as she lamented the pressure that social media puts on teenagers.
The Oscar-winner, 41, said today’s youngsters are exposed to ‘cyberbullying’ and ‘unattainable aspirations’.
And the solution, she told an audience of young people in London, is to return to ‘talking’ and ‘hugging’.
The mother of three, who keeps her children off social media, said: ‘Put down your phone. Today, social media robs so many of us of basic conversa-
tion.’ Referring to Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, she added: ‘We are constantly distracted from being our true selves in a world that is fuelled by inst-tweet-bookface, as I like to call it.
‘Share a real chat with the person sitting next to you, share stories, share being in this moment. By talking. Or with a hug.’
Miss Winslet’s speech at WE Day, an annual conference which ‘empowers young people to change the world,’ also covered body image, the term ‘perfection’ and her time at school.
The star of The Reader and Titanic said she was nicknamed ‘Blubber’ at school and her teacher told her to ‘settle for the fat girl parts’. However, the millionaire went on to say that she has learned to accept her ‘flaws’.
Telling the audience to be ‘indestructible’ and ‘ignore negative comments,’ she added: ‘I learned to make no apology for who I am. This is who I am. The real me. Kate from Reading.’