Ed Sheeran has encouraged fans to follow his lead and stop paying attention to the negative aspects of social media because it's "just foolish".

The Shape of You hitmaker recently suggested to The Sun he had been driven off Twitter by the barrage of hateful messages he often receives online, but the singer took to Instagram on Wednesday (05Jul17) to clarify his remarks, insisting he has only stopped reading every little thing that's said about him online.

Ed addressed the issue once again on Thursday (06Jul17) as he appeared on breakfast show Today, admitting changing the way he uses social media has brightened up his mornings.

"I got asked in an interview if I read negative things (online) and I was like, 'I don't even go on Twitter anymore,'" he explained. "But it's not like I've quit it. I still post on Instagram and it goes to Twitter, but I'm just not going to wake up and read something and be like, 'Oh, well that's ruined my day.' I don't want to choose to do that anymore."

The 26-year-old went on to urge others to do the same and embrace more love in their lives.

"There's so much positivity out there," he shared. "I'm just saying... as a human being, we always read the one negative one and ignore the others and I don't want to do that. It's just foolish to do when there's so much love out there in the world, to look at the negative stuff. I'm just choosing not to read it."

Ed's TV chat took place two days after Lady Gaga called on her followers to show the Brit "love and respect" following his candid comments to The Sun, in which he detailed a recent Twitter backlash when the Born This Way star's devotees had misconstrued something online and attacked him en masse.