For Meghan Markle‘s well being, she has distanced herself from social media. The Duchess of Sussex gave some insight as to why she is not active on various platforms during the Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit on Tuesday. “For my own self-preservation, I have not been on social media for a very long time,” Meghan told Fortune’s associate editor, Emma Hinchliffe. “I had a personal account years ago, which I closed down and then we had one through the institution and our office that was in the U.K. that wasn’t managed by us — that was a whole team — and so I think that comes with the territory for the job you have.”
“I’ve made a personal choice to not have any account, so I don’t know what’s out there, and many ways that’s helpful for me,” Meghan explained, adding that she worries about people who “have become obsessed with it.”
The former Suits star continued by saying that it has become “a part of our daily culture,” but that it’s also “an addiction.” “There are very few things in this world where you call the person who is engaging with it a user.”
She also gave some advice to people who are building their online brands, noting, “as you are out there engaging with friends online, just be conscious of what you’re doing…Understand that it is not limited to that one moment—that you are creating an echo chamber for yourself.” During the chat, Meghan was also asked if motherhood has changed how she thinks about leadership.
“It’s interesting because my gut is that it makes you more courageous, it makes you so concerned for the world they’re going to inherit,” Meghan noted. “So the things you’re able to tolerate on your own are not the same that you are going to put your child in a position of vulnerability for. You go every single day — how can I make this world better for Archie? That is a shared belief for my husband and I.
“At the same time, I am cautious of putting my family at risk by certain things. I try, rather, to be very clear in what I say and not get controversial and instead talk about things that seem very straight forward, like exercising your right to vote,” she continued. “I think that’s as simple as it comes and as necessary as it comes and to that point as a parent, I can enjoy all the fun and silliness and games with my son, but I wouldn’t be able to feel proud of myself as a mom if I didn’t know that I wasn’t doing my part to make it a better place for him.”
Meghan recently got candid about what it felt to be “the most trolled person” in the world. During her and husband Prince Harry‘s conversation with the Teenager Therapy podcast in honor of World Mental Health Day, Meghan noted that reading tabloids about herself was “almost unsurvivable.”
“I’m told that in 2019 I was the most trolled person in the entire world, male or female. Now eight months of that, I wasn’t even visible. I was on maternity leave or with a baby,” she shared. “But what was able to just be manufactured and churned out, it’s almost unsurvivable. That’s so big, you can’t even think of what that feels like. Because I don’t care if you’re 15 or 25, if people are saying things about you that aren’t true, what that does to your mental and emotional health is so damaging.”
Meanwhile, earlier this week, a source told ET that Meghan and Harry have gotten closer to the royal family during the coronavirus pandemic, and are also getting ready to show the world more of their passion for the causes they support.
Amid tabloid reports about continued drama among the royal family, our source said the reports are exaggerated.
“A lot of the family-specific drama that the tabloids are focused on, it’s not as fractured as the tabloids would like it to seem,” the source shared. “The pandemic has brought the family closer together.”
The source also noted, “You’re going to see a lot more of the duke and duchess in the coming weeks and months.”
