“Every child is born blessed with a vivid imagination,” once said famed cartoonist and theme park creator Walt Disney. Though Disney passed away in 1966, it’s not difficult to suppose what his view of the modern world 50 years later would have been: a landscape oversaturated with technology, and without enough encouragement toward the fantastical toward our children. Indeed, statistics from today show that overuse of smartphones is all together killing adults’ creativity – an issue only worsened regarding the developing brains of youngsters. As such, entrepreneur and Palo Alto father Stephen Dalby launched children’s phone network Gabb Wireless in 2019 to address this problem, bringing the positive aspects of connected technology to our kids without any harmful additions.
As a concerned parent himself, Dalby was inspired by his own difficult personal experience trying to find a suitable first phone for his 12-year-old son, coming up dry with parent-approved options. With most phones coming with full internet access and a game-laden application store, these adult-oriented phones weren’t a good fit for Dalby’s vision for his family: and thus, Gabb Wireless was born.
“It’s really one of the most complicated purchases that a parent makes,” said Dalby. “You want to be able to communicate with your child, but there are so many risks and dangers today just with the overconsumption of technology.”
Now, families across the United States can purchase one of Dalby’s innovative Gabb Wireless devices to stay in constant communication with their kids while maintaining peace of mind about what they’re exposed to. Products like the Gabb Phone Z2 give kids talk, text, a camera, and a calculator (all the integral details you’d come to expect from a modern phone) while removing online access. This way, kids can use their phone as they need to — to talk with family — without becoming lost in the screen, encouraging kids to put down their devices and utilize their imaginations for fun instead.
“This may sound surprising, but the reason why kids like our phone is because they don’t spend a lot of time on it,” Dalby continued. “Kids are happier when they are out playing with friends, developing talents, and connecting with humans, not sitting alone in a locked room swiping a screen.”
The research agrees: while regular cell phone use leads to increased rates of boredom, kids that spend a large amount of time outside are not only happier and healthier, but more confident in themselves to boot. And when accompanied by on-the-go devices like the Gabb Watch, worried parents can track their kids’ moves outdoors with ease thanks to its integrated GPS technology, making playtime safer than ever before.
While technology’s role in our kids’ lives will only continue to expand over the years, Gabb Wireless and its innovative approach to the children’s phone network majorly helps stall the development of device dependency, allowing kids to act exactly as they were meant to be: as truly innocent wide-eyed wanderers of the world.
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