Multiple British Royals Have Notes for Parents on Tech

Harry, Meghan speak out on social media while Kate focuses on digital distraction
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Oct 10, 2025 3:00 AM CDT
Multiple British Royals Have Notes for Parents on Tech
Meghan Markle, left, and Prince Harry, The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, attend the third annual World Mental Health Day Gala, hosted by Project Healthy Minds, at Spring Studios on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in New York.   (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle urged parents to stand against social media companies that they said prey upon children with exploitative algorithms as the "explosion of unregulated artificial intelligence" adds to their concerns that technologies' benefits are inseparable from its dangers, the AP reports. To underscore that point, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex cited research from advocacy group ParentsTogether that found researchers posing as children experienced harmful interactions every five minutes they spent with an artificial intelligence chatbot. Their remarks came at the annual gala for Project Healthy Minds, a Millennial- and Gen Z-driven tech nonprofit that runs a free online marketplace aiming to connect patients with the exact mental health care they seek.

"This wasn't content created by a third party. These were the companies' own chatbots working to advance their own depraved internal policies," said Prince Harry at Spring Studios in Manhattan Thursday night as he and Markle were named Humanitarians of the Year by the nonprofit Project Healthy Minds. "But here's what gives us hope: these families aren't facing this alone." To build their movement of families fighting for online safety, the couple also announced Thursday that their foundation's Parents Network would join forces with ParentsTogether.

Meanwhile, Harry's sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, also had a suggestion for parents: Please put down the phone. Kate, as she is commonly known, collaborated with adult development researcher Robert Waldinger to warn that technology is contributing to an epidemic of disconnection that is hurting family relationships, the AP reports. "We sit together in the same room while our minds are scattered across dozens of apps, notifications, and feeds,'' the authors wrote in an essay posted on the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood website. "We're physically present but mentally absent, unable to fully engage with the people right in front of us.'' The princess has made early childhood development one of her primary causes.

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