'Bored and Loving it.' Children's book aims to prevent cellphone addiction

In the book, three animal friends lose their phones and realize they can still have fun together without them.

Rose Shannon and Della Crews

Nov 16, 2024, 6:21 PM

Updated 35 days ago

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A Sacred Heart University professor and student have partnered on a unique project that warns about the dangers of children using cellphones.
Professor Richard Pate and Julia Fernandez wrote a new children's book called "Bored and Loving It."
In the book, three animal friends lose their phones and realize they can still have fun together without them.
The idea behind the project is to prevent young children from becoming addicted to cellphones before they receive one.
"Kids have developed an almost symbiotic relationship with these objects. They are everywhere, everywhere they go, they have these things in their hands. If they can read [the book] or if their parents read it to them, it tries to get them to instill an almost automatic aversion to these cellphones before they start using them. It tries to do this in a very subtle and hopefully entertaining way because we all know if you start to lecture kids, they are not going to listen," says Pate.
Fernandez is also the book's illustrator.