Former U.S. President Barack Obama told Prince Harry in an interview broadcast that people in leadership roles must be careful in their use of social media and warned against spending too much time immersed in the internet at the expense of the world outside.
Obama says, “All of us in leadership have to find ways to recreate a common space on the internet.One of the dangers of the internet is people can have entirely different realities. They can be just cocooned in information that reinforces their current biases.”
Obama said he felt serene the day he left the White House at the end of his second four-year term despite the vast amount of work that remained unfinished. He said it was “hugely liberating” to be able to set his own agenda in the morning to have the time to talk with his wife, Michelle, now that he is no longer president.
The prince used his position to ask Obama a “lightning round” of questions of the type normally asked of entertainers, not politicians.
Obama rejected gloomy prognostications about the state of the world, saying that in many ways the world is healthier and wealthier than it has ever been, making it perhaps the best time in human history to be born.
He cited improved treatment of African-Americans and greatly expanded opportunities for young women as achievements of the past few generations that give him hope for the future.
