Ellie Harrison, 43, is known for being immensely private in her personal life and divulged the real reason why she keeps herself completely off social media these days. The Countryfile host revealed her initial fear of Twitter sparked the sudden internet cleanse, after she had begun to feel “frightened” of how conversations on the micro-blogging site would affect her day.
Opening up on her views in 2017, Ellie admitted to Radio Times: “I don’t engage with Twitter conversations because I’m frightened it will ruin my day. I prefer not to look at all.”
This escalated two years later, when Ellie decided to delete all of her social media accounts for good.
Addressing criticism she receives online, the TV star told Express.co.uk: “I don’t have Twitter or Instagram and anything that’s programme specific is dealt with by the producers.
“Unless there’s anything, in particular, I need to be pulled up on, then I tend not to hear about it. And I choose to keep it that way.”
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Ellie felt social media was doing more harm than good in the long run and therefore completely shut off from it to protect her mental wellbeing.
She explained: “I had Twitter until Christmas then I came off everything at the same time thinking this isn’t lifting me up, this isn’t bringing anything warm or good into my life.”
The Countryfile presenter felt comments on sites such as Instagram were not constructive enough to warrant her reading them.
“It wasn’t because I was getting feedback particularly, because I think if you want to hear praise then you have to hear criticism too,” she said.
Opening up on how social media could change to be a more positive space, Ellie believes numbers should be taken out of the equation, including hiding likes on peoples profiles.
“I kind of like the Kanye West stance of just saying there shouldn’t be any numbers at all.
“Not just the number of likes, but no numbers at all because then you’d be posting things for art’s sake.
“There could be one person seeing it or 100 million and if you don’t know, then you’re producing it for the right reasons rather than to grab attention,” she added.
