United Kingdom, Oct. 9 -- Catherine, Princess of Wales has warned screentime is causing an "epidemic of disconnection".

The 43-year-old royal has expressed her concerns that mobile phones and the Internet are disrupting family life and stopping people engaging with one another face-to-face.

In an essay written in collaboration with Professor Robert Waldinger from Harvard Medical School for her early years education campaign, she said: "While digital devices promise to keep us connected, they frequently do the opposite."

The princess noted in the essay, which has been published on the website of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, gadgets have become a "constant distraction, fragmenting our focus" and undermining the time t...