Meghan Markle explains why she's no longer on social media

Meghan Markle has made the surprise admission that she no longer uses social media at all.

Many royal fans believed the Duchess of Sussex was the one behind the couple's official Instagram account, after years spent cultivating her own lifestyle blog The Tig and growing an Instagram following of over 1.9 million on her personal account.

The 38-year-old however indicated she was not running the Sussex Royal account, and hasn't used social media since closing down her personal pages in 2017, just before her engagement to Prince Harry was announced.

"I have, for my own self preservation, I have not been on social media for a very long time".

"I had a personal account, which I closed down and then we had one [an Instagram account] through the institution and our office that was in the UK... but that wasn't managed by us, that was a whole team," Meghan told Emma Hinchliffe during the virtual Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit.

"I've made a personal choice to not have any account, so I don't know what's out there and in many ways that's helpful for me," she added.

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The Duchess went on to voice her concerns for people who have become addicted to social media.

Echoing a quote in the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, Meghan likened social media addiction to drug use.

"You know, people who are addicted to drugs are called users and people who are on social media are called users... there is something algorithmically that is in there that is creating this obsession that I think is very unhealthy for a lot of people."

Last week the Duchess claimed she was the most trolled person in 2019 during an appearance with Harry on the Teenager Therapy podcast.

There too she spoke about the dangers of social media and how it can be a force for negativity and hate.

"I can speak personally, too. I'm told that in 2019, I was the most trolled person in the entire world, male or female," she claimed.

Calling the online hate "almost survivable", the Duchess touched on the damage online vitriol can do to anyone's emotional and mental health.