LONDON: The Princess of Wales has 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. Devices that promise to keep us connected often do the opposite, they say in an essay posted on the Royal Foundation Center for Early Childhood website.
“We sit together in the same room while our minds are scattered across dozens of apps, notifications, and feeds,’’ the authors wrote. “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. She has now teamed up with Waldinger, who is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, a long-term study of adult life and happiness that concluded those with stronger relationships were more likely to live happy, satisfying and healthier lives.
“Look the people you care about in the eye and be fully there — because that is where love begins,” they said.
Princess of Wales suggests parents should put down the phone to combat social discontent
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Princess of Wales suggests parents should put down the phone to combat social discontent
- Kate collaborated with adult development researcher Robert Waldinger to warn that technology is contributing to an epidemic of disconnection
- The princess has made early childhood development one of her primary causes
Islamist militants show ‘unprecedented coordination’ in Burkina Faso attacks
- The assaults were on several towns in the north and east including Bilanga, Titao, Tandjari and Nare
- The operations targeted military detachments, civilian convoys and market areas
DAKAR: Islamist militants have killed dozens of soldiers and civilians and overrun an army detachment over the past week in coordinated attacks across multiple regions of Burkina Faso, according to internal reports by two diplomatic missions reviewed by Reuters.
The operations by Al Qaeda–linked Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam wal-Muslimin show the JNIM is increasingly able to mobilize across large swathes of territory at one time, said the reports, which described a list of locations and places that came under assault.
Burkina Faso’s military rulers seized power in a coup in 2022, promising to improve security. But militants’ attacks have increased in the West African country as state forces battle an insurgency that has spread across the Sahel from Mali.
The assaults were on several towns in the north and east including Bilanga, Titao, Tandjari and Nare, the diplomatic reports said. One also described an assault in the eastern city of Fada N’Gourma and flagged another in the northern Ouahigouya area.
“These attacks, which were almost simultaneous and spread across several provinces, demonstrate unprecedented coordination between militants and the junta’s inability to contain the assaults,” said one of the internal reports, which put the death toll at more than 180.
The other gave no toll but said the incidents appeared coordinated and involved several hundred militants serving JNIM and possibly Daesh affiliates.
The operations targeted military detachments, civilian convoys and market areas, it said.
JNIM has said it killed scores of troops from the Burkinabe army in attacks in the past week, US-based SITE Intelligence Group said on Monday.
Burkina authorities did not respond to a request for comment on the assaults or casualty reports.
INJURED GHANAIANS RETURN HOME
In the northern town of Titao, militants attacked an army base and set a market on fire, the internal reports said.
Nearly 80 soldiers and pro-government militia members were killed, one said. The other said about 10 civilians were killed there.
The dead civilians included eight tomato traders, Ghana’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
SITE quoted a media unit for JNIM as saying the insurgents had seized military vehicles, guns and other possessions in the assaults. More than a decade of insurgencies in the Sahel has displaced millions and engendered economic collapse, with violence pushing further south toward West Africa’s coast.
JNIM claimed nearly 500 attacks in Burkina Faso in 2025 and nearly 300 in Mali, SITE’s director, Rita Katz, said in a social media post on LinkedIn.
