Put down the phone, prince advises youth

PRINCE Harry has suggested that young people need to lift up their heads from their phones and iPads to improve their mental health.

The prince, 32, suggested that people no longer talk to each other about their problems, choosing instead to spend their time on social media.

This was preventing them from sharing and overcoming their own and other people’s difficulties.

The Duchess of Cambridge, meanwhile, suggested laughing out loud or going for a long walk as everyday tips for helping cope with mental health problems.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry spent yesterday at a Christmas party for mental health charities including Heads Together, the umbrella group they founded, which is also one of the beneficiaries of this year’s Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal.

Prince Harry sat in on a talk about suicide led by Ged Flynn and Heather Dickinson, of the suicide prevention charity Papyrus, in which they discussed ways of getting young people to open up about having suicidal thoughts.

Afterwards the prince chatted with Flynn, chief executive of the charity, who said: “I sometimes [say]: ‘May your life be as happy as social media pretends it is,’ because there is a veneer, a pretend life going on for a lot of young people’.”

Prince Harry appeared to be in reflective mood as he joined his brother and sister-in-law a day after he had waved off his girlfriend Meghan Markle, who is spending Christmas in the US with her family.

The prince dropped her off at Heathrow airport on Sunday after spending the week with her at his home in Kensington Palace. – The Telegraph