Prince Harry: Young People Should Spend Less Time On Smartphones To Improve Mental Health

Prince Harry is concerned that young people are spending too much time on their smartphones than talking to actual people.

The Telegraph reported that Prince Harry advises the youth to "lift up their heads" and get involved in normal conversations than spend most of their time being glued to their phones and tablets. The royal pointed out that talking to people personally could help them share and overcome their struggles than hiding behind social media and drowning in their issues.

Prince Harry attended a Christmas party at the mental health charity Heads Together with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. The royal trio founded the umbrella group, which aims to help young people get through their mental health issues.

Heads Together chief executive Ged Flynn told reporters about his conversation with the younger royalsaying Prince Harry used the phrase "lift your heads" since "a lot of people are spending their time looking down at apps and so on."

The 32-year-old prince added that young people are not having much of a normal face-to-face contact these days because they do not go out and talk to each other anymore like what people in his father's generation did. The royal was also concerned about how people could open up and talk about having suicidal thoughts.

"I sometimes use the phrase '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," Flynn explained. "What is killing young people more than anything else is themselves."

According to Jason Foundation, more teenagers and young adults die from suicide than cancer, stroke, heart disease, chronic lung disease, birth defects, influenza, pneumonia and AIDS combined.

Furthermore, there is an average of 5,240 suicide attempts among young people from age 12 to 18 in the U.S. alone.