India’s first non-profit publisher of children’s books, the Children’s Book Trust, celebrated Children’s Happiness Day at its booth at the 49th International Kolkata Book Fair by launching a special awareness campaign called ‘Book Helps, Mobile Harms’. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the negative consequences of excessive mobile phone use while emphasizing the importance of developing reading habits in children from a young age.

Over 1,000 reasonably priced children’s books in English, Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu, including picture books, storybooks, and knowledge-based, value-driven publications, are on display at CBT’s Stall No. E-63. Children from the Child in Need Institute (CINI) NGO graced the occasion and represented the Trust’s dedication to inclusive education and child development during the Children’s Happiness Day activities.

Eminent storyteller Golpo Dida, Ms. Sudeshna Moitra, Mr. Sujoy Roy, National Advocacy Officer, CINI, along with Ms. Rana Siddiqui Zaman, Lead Strategist – Content, Communications and Promotions, Children’s Book Trust, graced the event.

Children’s Book Trust is addressing the growing concerns of educators and parents around the effects of excessive screen time on children with the “Book Helps, Mobile Harms” campaign. The commercial emphasizes the negative effects that excessive mobile phone use can have on vision, mental health, focus, and general development. On the other hand, it highlights the long-term advantages of reading, such as enhanced concentration, creativity, critical thinking, imagination, and sustained knowledge generation, which help kids develop a more positive and meaningful relationship with learning—benefits that digital screen exposure frequently falls short of.

Global data support the “Book Helps, Mobile Harms” campaign by highlighting growing worries about children’s use of mobile phones. At least 79 educational systems worldwide have implemented prohibitions on smartphone usage in classrooms, according to the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report 2023–24. This is a reflection of growing awareness of how mobile phones can distract students and adversely affect learning outcomes. The study emphasizes that inappropriate or excessive use of technology is associated with poorer focus and lower academic performance, and that even the mere presence of a smartphone might cause students to lose focus on academic work. The need for balanced digital habits and a stronger emphasis on traditional reading and continuous interaction with books, particularly during early developmental years, is reinforced by these global trends, which strengthen the CBT campaign.

Excessive mobile phone use among youngsters is increasingly associated with poor focus, disturbed sleep patterns, eye strain, anxiety, and decreased academic performance, according to global research and data highlighted across Google-indexed studies. Long-term screen time, particularly before bed, has been shown to dramatically shorten sleep duration, which can have an impact on memory, learning capacity, and emotional health. Additionally, experts caution that early and regular smartphone use diminishes opportunities for creativity, physical activity, and meaningful social connection, inhibits sustained attention and deep thought, and promotes passive content consumption. These results highlight the critical necessity to balance children’s exposure to digital media and encourage reading habits that support better cognitive and emotional development.

The Children’s Book Trust, a New Delhi-based organization with a 69-year history, has been instrumental in influencing future generations of readers by providing excellent, reasonably priced, and well-illustrated Indian children’s books. As part of CBT’s larger “Look East Policy,” which aims to increase the Trust’s involvement throughout Eastern and North-Eastern India, it is taking part in the Kolkata Book Fair.

In cities and towns like Asansol, Patna, Panagarh, Siliguri, Ranchi, Guwahati, Darjeeling, and Shillong, where parents and kids alike eagerly anticipate opportunities to interact with books and rediscover the joy of reading, CBT’s targeted outreach under the “Look East Policy” is becoming more and more noticeable.

Priyanka Dutta