← The 1000 Hours Outside Podcast
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- [00:01]
State Farm Announcer
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- [00:31]
Ginny Ert
Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Ert. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. I'm so excited today because we are going to be talking about delaying smartphones, which is probably one of the best things that you could ever do for your children. And how do we do that? Russell York from Cosmo Technologies is here to talk about it and a lot of other things. Welcome, Russell.
- [00:49]
Russell York
Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.
- [00:52]
Ginny Ert
So you are part of this space that's helping parents to delay smartphones because, you know, in a lot of ways we need to keep track of our kids or get in contact with our kids. And so the smartphone has seemed like it is the only option. And so we're kind of handing those out to kids at pretty young ages. And what your company is doing is giving an alternative, which is a watch. I want to talk about that for a second because there is something about a watch when it comes to kids. We're going to be talking about ideas for Christmas, for holiday. We actually have this amazing deal combined together with you, where people can get a free watch. And we have one of them at our house right now. Now it's this combo 1000 hours outside junior track five Cosmo watch. And you get this 1000 hours outside bandwidth that you get three months free of service, actually. So it's like this incredible deal. Anyway, it's been sitting on the counter and our youngest daughter's like, when can I have it? She has asked so many times. And we're like, well, you know, we are in the middle of doing the giveaway with you. And also we've got this deal going on through December 12th where people can get the watch for free as well as three months of service. And she's like, when? Like, when can I have it? And I'm like, well, we're using it for the moment to get photos and different pieces of media. So then yesterday, Russell, her friend, was over, they're both nine, and he was like, can I have it? And then he asked his mom, he was like, Can I get one of those for Christmas? I just want to talk about, like, that's actually a really special thing that I had forgotten about with our older kids. Like, the next one up is 12. And I do remember that all of our kids went through a stage, probably middle elementary school, where they all wanted a watch. It's like a rite of passage.
- [02:31]
Russell York
Yeah, it is. I mean, in the modern day, for us, it was a bike, maybe. And today, increasingly, it's a smartwatch. Or, you know, even landlines are working their way into that sort of early connection conversation. There's a lot of interesting products that come before smartphones. You know, when you ask a kid today to make the hand gesture for picking up a phone call, and they do the. You know, they like, make a hand like they're grabbing a smartphone instead of what we used to do, which is like, you know, hang loose. Yeah, the banana. Whatever you do when you're surfing, you know, your thumb and your pinky finger sticking out. Smartphones are the phone now. That's what we think of as a phone. And I think the conversation that parents are having is how do we keep that as far away from my kid for as long as possible. A lot of us are talking about how we take it out of our pockets forever and replace it with something else. And certainly when it comes to kids, the demand to be connected isn't going anywhere. But how do we connect them responsibly? And I'm excited to work with you to get a great deal exclusively for your audience to get free devices for Christmas.
- [03:42]
Ginny Ert
So I'm talking about even just a watch in general, like a smartwatch. It, like, adds a little bit of an extra, you know, glamour to it, and it's exciting. But there is an age, all of our kids went through it where they hit an age, and they really. They want to know what time it is. They're really excited to have kind of a small piece of technology. You know, they. Then our older kids were, you know, getting to that age before they were smartwatches for kids, and they all wanted a watch, all of them. So I. I almost think it's this. This thing.
- [04:11]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
It's.
- [04:11]
Ginny Ert
It's such a good pairing because they're already developmentally starting to want that anyway. And so it just aligns with their natural desire to be a little bit more independent, to know what time there's already a draw to. To be a watch owner, you know, by the time you're third, fourth, fifth grade. And so I just. It was been interesting this past week you know, having the watch at the house and like, you know, the little fourth graders that are like so when can I have that? You know, they, they like watches and I think that that's a special thing because you know, there's a lot of pressure for them at those same ages to be getting smartphones and if we can kind of utilize their natural interest that's already there, you know, to wear a watch and to know what time it is and to kind of have a little bit more knowledge of what's going on in the world.
- [04:56]
Russell York
If I can shout out a brand that I love that's just a totally analog watch. It's called Freestyle and they make these fantastic 90s esque watches. They just tell the time. Maybe you can set an alarm and they're velcro band and the whole thing. If you're in the market for just a watch with nothing else, maybe for a 5 to 8 year old kid that wants to tell the time, check out Freestyle. They're really cool. I get targeted with their ads all the time on the social media platforms so they look really cool. I recommend those just as a shout out. But there's that age where you look around at all the adults and you're like, I want to watch, I want sunglasses, I want a ball cap, I want a pocket knife, whatever is around you. Right? You want to be like everyone else.
- [05:45]
Ginny Ert
Yeah, I think so. Instead of saying no, you can't get a smartphone, we can kind of come alongside a child with their own natural interests and say oh yeah, you know, instead of a smartphone. But you know how you really wanted a watch and this has all these features that are going to help you stay connected with mom and dad or stay connected with grandparents, stay connected with your neighbor friends. So here's what the situation. We had an experience the other day. I was with our nine year old and a friend and she has a nine year old and a seven year old and a baby. And so we walked through her neighborhood up to this park. It was probably like a 10 minute walk. And we walk up to this park, it's just this big open field and the kids had brought this rocket that they wanted to launch and they didn't bring the base, they couldn't find the base. So they're trying to launch his rocket. Didn't work. So they asked if me and the other mom would like walk back to the house with the baby and, and see if we could find the base, which we never found. So it was a total bus but we left them there and I, you know, even though this is what I talk about all the time, even though I've interviewed Lenor Skiny, we both were like, you know, you have this feeling on the inside of like. And, and it's even less of. There's a couple pieces of it. It's, it's less of like they might get nabbed because there's a couple kids there. There's always a little bit of safety in numbers. It's less of that, but that's really a small number of kids. Truth be told, it's only three. It's a. And it's a little more of like, are we a CPS gonna call, you know, is someone gonna. Whatever. Someone gonna call child protective Services? Is someone are gonna go by and be like, these irresponsible parents? Why are these kids out in this field? And it just reminded me of how kids used to have. So Lenore Skinny says they had so much more opportunity to go further. Now here these kids are 9 and 7 and she talks about how when kids were 8 years old that they used to be able to go miles, miles from home. And we were probably like less than a half mile from them and six miles, you know, an 88 year old grandpa. So someone who was born in the 1900s at some point, like the earlier 1900s, what would have been able to go six miles from home, you know, and then, you know, at least a mile for, for a long time. So it was just a reminder to me of what's been lost. Can you talk about what happens when a child has a watch, a smartwatch, like a junior track five, and how that can help them to increase their zone of exploration?
- [08:13]
Russell York
Yeah, I mean, there's so many ways to explain what happens if I'm, if I'm picking Elaine. I'll say one of the things that happens is that parents stop keeping them so close to home. Right. There's an invisible fence that's created by rules and a comfort zone. Right. And that comfort zone becomes the perimeter of a child's freedom. And it's not that that comfort zone is the equivalent of a real world safety zone by any true metric. It just is that that kind of invisible fence that parents create where they're saying, okay, up to this point I feel like I'm being responsible or I could react to something or I might hear something, whatever that zone is for you, I know a neighbor on that street, so that's okay. There's a million data points that inform where a parent's mental digital fence is. And a Watch extends that significantly because communication is such an essential part of safety. The reason that digital communication has become such a crucial part of safety is because for the last 25 years, the entire public, the adult public that is, has become digitally connected in a 24, 7, never ending capacity. Right? The phone in your pocket, the ring, camera on your front door, whatever it is. There's this entire network of devices, subscriptions and mobile services, GPS satellites that are connecting all of us at all times. And that has created a new expectation around what it means to be safe. We just never included kids in that the right way. And so if you don't give your kid a smartphone, then they're not connected. That's kind of the world that we're in right now. Well, there are options, which is what we're talking about, but to many families that's sort of the compromise they feel like they have to make. I either have to agree to not be connected with my kid and keep them in this bubble, or give them a smartphone and then I feel a little bit better about them walking to school or, or you know, going to that park or whatever the thing is. Well, there's, there have to be other solutions. First of all, it's wild. The big technology companies have so underserved the under 13 year old market. That's a whole other topic. But it makes sense why parents feel the way that they do.
- [10:44]
Ginny Ert
It does, it does. You know, it's Thursdays are the day, Russell, that I record podcasts and I happen to have been recording podcasts all day today. And there's just a couple things that got brought up today that really relate with this. And you know, there's this concept that kids deserve a radical amount of downtime. You know, they have to be able to come up with their own mental imagery. And I talked to a man, today's name is Mike McLeod, and we talked especially about kids who have ADHD. And then I also talked to a man named Mark Ber, Dr. Mark Berman, who wrote a book that's called the Mind of Nature. And he also talked about kids with adhd. And it's interesting how actually on a lot of these days there's a lot of topics that interweave. But they both were saying that nature is a necessity, basically, like it's an absolute necessity. And Dr. Mark Berman was saying that as the day goes on, our attention drains, he called it directed attention fatigue. We have this tank of attention and it drains through the day. Day. You think about a kid sitting in school. He said one of the Things that's most fatiguing is boredom. I was like, oh, my goodness, think about these kids. You know, they're sitting. I mean, don't you remember as a kid? You're like, I am bored out of my mind. Angela Hanscom, this woman who wrote Balanced and Barefoot, she said she went to a middle school one time to try and make it through a day and see what it's like, what's it like to be in middle school. She goes, I got to lunch and I had to leave. She's like, I was so bored. It's so fatiguing. And so in order to get your attention filled back up, your two options are to sleep or to go outside. And that's pretty much it. So it is a necessity that these kids are getting outdoors after school. But the problem is, is that. And this is what people bring up a lot. Either I have to go with them, which is not always an option. Parents are working, they have dinner to make, they have laundry to do, they have other children, younger children, they're nursing babies. Or I have to be okay with them to go alone and find neighbor friends and go with siblings and that type of thing. Or I think they're underserviced. Like, if neither option is there, then they're not getting that radical downtime, that filling back up of their attention that they desperately need. And so, you know, I think we're sort of in a. In somewhat of a conundrum and something like a junior track five watch solve that, because then you can call the kid home for dinner, or they can go find their friend, or you can feel safe with them roaming while you're trying to get things done at home or finish up the rest of your workday or something like that. Can you talk about just the change in childhood in terms of this indoor outdoor piece? It's a huge change, and it's a really detrimental change for today's kids.
- [13:31]
Russell York
Yeah. I grew up in suburban San Diego, and so outdoor to me was parks, maybe a canyon. You know, between neighborhood developments, there might be a canyon to, you know, ride your bike down a dirt path or something. So limited. Limited out, like limited. True nature, I would say. And so it resonates with me what you're talking about, because there was a lot of time that felt a little bit cooped up even when I was outside. Right. You could be roaming the streets in a neighborhood, but everything's. It's asphalt, it's pavement, you know, And I would listen to my. My dad tell stories around the dinner table about Growing up in Bozeman, Montana or in Gary, Indiana, back in the 50s and 60s. And you know what you're talking about being miles away from home, carrying a.22, you know, to shoot squirrels or whatever he was after, crossing railroad tracks and all the adventures with, you know, running into wild animals, it just, and I know he always wanted that for us and to this day talks about how we were a lower middle class family growing up in a suburb in an expensive city, but we were there for the reasons that we were there. And what he always wished he could have shown the kids was the world that he grew up in. And that's not to say that you can't give your kid those kinds of experiences day in and day out in a suburban landscape. You can the park and fresh air, that's where you go, that's where you tap in and hopefully you're able and have the flexibility to take a summer trip somewhere and show them some of the big things in this country. But you know, the point is, I think that there's what you're saying that that kind of ability to unplug from boredom that happens outside, we've lost a little bit of that. And I think generationally parents are the ones that carry a huge amount of that anxiety because we knew what it was like or we understand the perspective, even if it's just stories from a prior generation about what used to be. We have a responsibility to carve it out for this generation and to do it very intentionally because we're understanding it's a, it's a real health issue.
- [15:46]
Ginny Ert
Yes, it is. And, and for their attention, you know, you cannot fill back up that attention. So what this Dr. Mark Berman was saying, and also Mike McLeod, is that once your attention drains and this happens, you know, you're this. The kids have hardly any recess. It's something like 22 minutes on average a day across the United States. How much recess they have, it's a seven hour school day, so they're totally drained. And then they don't have the capacity to have impulse control. So it's, it's like snowballing right into the family afternoon. Then you've got kids that are irritated and they're just so drained. And maybe as a parent you are too. And it just causing these evenings to be hectic, hectic around homework. And so an amazing, I think rhythm in life would be if your kid could have that hour or an hour and a half once the school days over to be outside, you know, depending on their age. But remember Dr. Peter Gray was out on his own at 4. You know, it's not like you're gonna send your toddler out there by themselves, but like, historically speaking, it was pretty young ages that kids were allowed to be outdoors and roam a little bit. It's just gonna help the family unit to be more cohesive. And I think that's a big thing that we want. You know, there's just a lot of rubbing of shoulders in a, of of rubbing raw, like raw edges of people that are just exhausted and they're not feeling themselves back up.
- [17:12]
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- [20:54]
Ginny Ert
So then another thing that Mike McLeod said. He was talking about in particular kids with ADHD, but just in general, like we shouldn't be home so much. And he said that no kid with ADHD should be doing. I mean, that's probably an exaggeration, but he's like, don't have them do their homework at home because they're just going to be drawn to the screens and they're just going to want to fight with you about it. He's like, have them do their homework somewhere else at the library or something like that. So that also made me think about the watch because it does allow your child to possibly be in different environments like we've, you and I have always talked about. They can roam, you can put on this geofence. You know, maybe they can go two blocks or they can go six blocks and it grows with time. But another thing that you could do is drop them off at the community center. We've got a library one mile up the road.
- [21:39]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Russell.
- [21:40]
Ginny Ert
I was like, oh well, what if my 9 year old would spend an hour and a half there? You know, she's got a watch, she can call me when she's ready to come home. She could go sit and read. She could do, you know, if you got an 11 year old or something like that. There's more. I guess it opened my, my mind to even more. Do you send them into the grocery store? There's just a lot more opportunities for independence even than just roaming the neighborhood.
- [22:04]
Russell York
It's funny you say that I was homeschooled, right? So I'm, I'm sort of the, you know, mid-30s, you know, looking back at an experienced version of that, that, that story. And that's exactly what my mom would do. She would go and drop us at the library. I remember because, you know, when you're homeschooled, you're at home doing your homework and, and now I'm an adult running a company from my home office. I feel like I've been at home my entire life. Can't, I can't escape it. But you know, my, my mother would drive us to the community senator or the, the library. And I remember even just changing environment. Great exercise because it changed the nature of how I was trying to focus because now there were different distractions. You know, there were, there were people in the library. There was, there was, there were other noises and things going on. And you know, for I'm, I'm incredibly distractible. I don't know, I've never been diagnosed as anything, but I feel like I probably am an ADHD type person. And so for me, studying in a library is incredibly difficult actually, because I'm a squirrel. Just everything pulls my attention. But you know, the the change in environment was an exercise that my, my mom knew that I needed and my siblings needed. And so of course get out of the house if that's your primary environment and, and try somewhere new. I think that the thing about the watch that's so great and I would extend that again to be any non cell phone mobile connected device that you as a parent trust that will give your child more freedom, right? So whatever that is to you, and there's a lot of great products out there, but whatever that is to you, the virtue of those products and the reason that those companies exist and the reason that I think consumers today, parent consumers today need to pay attention is because there's a moment of opportunity to reverse course on where we've been going as a society, which is especially post Covid. But it's been to be more homed, more isolated in our cul de sacs, to be more cut off from nature and to be less aware of our environment and its impact on us and our mental health. And I think that we need to become radically aware of, of our environment and our mental health. There's a fantastic organization called Strong Towns which advocates for community design and better living spaces and designing the world around people. And that to me resonates in their message is they're saying we need to be aware of what happens when you put a four lane road between a housing development and a community center, right? Suddenly in order to get to that community center, you have to walk across a football field of Asphal, has, you know, three ton metal vehicles hauling down it at 60 miles an hour. And it just doesn't matter if there's lights that tell you it's safe. It doesn't feel safe to your biology and so you won't make that trip as often. And we cut people off and we've isolated ourselves. And that's done through physical design, it's done through digital design and it's done through the habits and you know, priorities of our society. And so we need to lean in. We need to lean in and change that.
- [25:28]
Ginny Ert
That. I love the word radical. There needs to be a radical shift. People are struggling. And what's interesting, Russell, is I think this becomes more and more pertinent with every day just because of the AI situation. And I just posted an article the other day where it said that 20% of high schoolers have an AI relationship. 20%, one in five. I would imagine that the majority of their parents wouldn't even know how to do that. Honestly, I don't think I would know how to do that. I'm sure that if I looked it up and was like, I would like to have an AI boyfriend, you know, I'm probably could find it, but it's like, not part of my culture. And yet this is sweeping through. And so I think there's going to be a continued push toward, like, you know, there's no legislation on it. There should be, but like, higher and higher, Higher ages of smartphone availability to young people. So, you know, I know you talk about marketing to the under 13s, but really, I mean, this is a great option for the over 13s too. I talked to this woman named Nicole Runyon. She wrote a book called Free to Fly, and she was talking about how.
- [26:30]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Kids should drive at 16.
- [26:31]
Ginny Ert
I posted about it. People got really mad because they were like, well, they're. They do get in more accidents at 16. But she said, you know, this is the age that people have said that kids should be able to drive. And we've decided as a society and obviously we need to teach them safe driving habits. And then she talked about how there's these certain periods of time where kids are naturally growing in their independence. And so it was 9 and 16. And she's like, if you miss the window of time, then they may struggle, you know, they may, you know, have some, some missteps after that because they've missed that natural window. Can you talk about the under 12 crowd? Because they are the 13 and undercrowd because, you know, for a long time they weren't really a part of the conversation. Really. To your point, right? Like, why is no one serving this community of people? And just the fact that handing them what we're giving to the older kids is really not what best serves them.
- [27:28]
Russell York
Well, look, I mean, there, there are two incredibly underserved communities as far as technology is concerned. But you could extend this. I think I'm scratching my brain really quickly, but I think you extend this to every service and every product, and that's young people and old people, the juniors and seniors in our society. The technology products that come out are primarily designed for people between the ages of. Let's call it 14. Right. And 80. Right. 75, something like that. Once your vision goes and you're in your. You lose the sensation, your fingers to tap those little, little touchscreens. As an elderly person, these smartphones become incredibly difficult to manage. And they're getting, you know, pulled into scams. Well, before that. And you know, they're the subject of all kinds of predatory scams. Well before that. This is the failure of the technology world to address how technology relates to users at different ages. And there's been, I think, very little consideration of kids under 13, except for how to milk them for profit through a handful of services and apps that are obviously designed to addict them, pry their attention, you know, gather data about them, despite federal laws to that effect. But these are pretty flimsy federal laws that need updates. No, I mean, for me as an entrepreneur, I look at it and I see a blazing fire problem. And that's the kind of. That's a business opportunity, right? You see a blazing fire in America, if you go and put it out, you might be able to make some money. And so that's why I'm here. But there are unfortunately much larger corporations that are happy to make money stoking the fire. And they know that by stoking the fire at these various age groups, they're able to make money in decent ways. So, no, I think it takes, honestly, platforms like yourself to platform the outside voices that are talking about this and saying, business as usual is not good business. We need to change the way the business is done. Outrage is the right word to talk about what's going on. But thankfully there are options. Options.
- [29:46]
Ginny Ert
There are options. Okay, so the option here, this is a cool opportunity, is you can get The Junior Track 5 watch with the 1000 hours outside band. It is such a cool watch band. There's another band in there too. You can swap them out, but it comes in this really cool box. You can wrap it up under the Christmas tree. It's a fantastic gift. It looks really cool. I'll make sure that I'll put pictures in, like when I post about it on Instagram. But it's like a legit gift. It's a big box. And to my point earlier, the age group that this serves, they really like watches anyways. They're really drawn in by having their own watch and it gives them a little bit of feeling of independence. You know, there was a time when 9 and 10 year olds were babysitting. You know, I mean, like, things have swung so far the other way. I had read a statistic, or I guess it was just not a statistic, but a piece of information that like, you know, and obviously this is not what we want, but like 4 year olds were like chimney sweeps and now so people are saying that, you know, you're not an adult until you're 26. I had read something in someone's book where they said the parents had to fill out a liability Waiver for a piano recital. I was like, oh goodness, we have swung so far. But you can just see how these types of things really, they hinder, they hamper a child and their love of life and their vigor, and they also hamper the parent because then you're frozen. You're frozen if you're afraid and you have to sign a liability waiver for the piano recital. And you're not going to let them out of your sight because there's just so much fear surrounding parenting and what's going to happen to your kids. You're, you're both hampered, your experience of childhood and parenthood are affected. And so, I mean, this is an incredible opportunity to try it. I mean, these watches are like, I don't know, something like $15 a month. You get three months free if you give, you try this deal, the best deal you guys have ever had. I'm pretty sure we're partnering together this, but it's something like $15 a month. And I think what an incredible way to spend money to help your child gain some independence. And for you as a parent, once you try it, you know, once your kids, once you leave them at the park and you walk home to try and find the base for the rocket and you come back 20 minutes later and they're fine. You grow a little bit yourself every single time that happens as a parent in your trust of your kids. And so that's like a win win for the whole family. But you know, for all involved, it really, it matters and it helps to swing things back from this sort of culture of fear to a culture of trust in our kids.
- [32:15]
State Farm Announcer
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- [32:39]
Ginny Ert
All.
- [32:40]
State Farm Announcer
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
When I think back on my own.
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Ginny Ert
Childhood, I remember the freedom of the neighborhood.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
Hours spent riding bikes with friends until the street lights came on.
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Ginny Ert
That's what childhood should feel like.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
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Ginny Ert
Bikes on the market.
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Ginny Ert
The balance, the brakes, the handlebars, the.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
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Ginny Ert
You learn to love the ride.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
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Ginny Ert
Box, we could feel the difference.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
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Ginny Ert
And that's the heartbeat of what we do.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
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Ginny Ert
Through real world play.
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Sponsor/Ad Voice
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- [36:38]
Ginny Ert
Someone, they were talking about the, you know, the trust in their growth. Oh, I lost my train of thought about it. Oh, okay, I'm just gonna move on. I'm gonna cut that part out. I was earlier today. So many of these topics they weave together, but I can't remember what it was. Anyway, okay, I'm just gonna cut that part out. So anyways, this is going to increase, it's going to increase your trust in your kids and then in time, you know, you're just going to feel better as a parent.
- [37:01]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
Okay.
- [37:02]
Ginny Ert
So I always love when you give stories. It's a great part, you know, when you talk about stories. You know, there were stories about when the bus broke down or stories about, you know, being able to contact if you're at the park and, and you need help. Can you talk about.
- [37:13]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
I.
- [37:14]
Ginny Ert
You're so great at getting customer feedback. What are people saying?
- [37:17]
Russell York
Well, it's so funny. You were just talking about four year old chimney sweeps. And obviously that's a very Mary Poppins era thing, but there's modern day equivalence to parents of giving your kid what feels like radical independence. So here's one that I heard from a customer recently which was leaving them at home to babysit their siblings. So you're talking about 9, 10 years old being a babysitter. Right. But giving them cash to pay the pizza delivery guy and teaching them how to tip. Okay, so, you know, and they were explaining that they would have normally been uncomfortable with their kid answering the door to a stranger, even a pizza delivery guy, quote unquote. Right? Like, but you know, with, with the watch, they were like, all right, like, yeah, We've, we've. It was almost more of memorializing a moment of maturity, right?
- [38:07]
Ginny Ert
Yeah.
- [38:07]
Russell York
That's what we talk about is the watch kind of being like a bicycle. Like, it's a coming of age thing. You're kind of growing up now, so we're gonna give you the watch and we're gonna trust you to pay the pizza delivery guy and tip the right amount of money. Right. And, you know, so I love, I love hearing those stories because that's what I grew up doing. Like, I remember learning how to tip the pizza guy and being thrilled about getting pizza. That. Yeah, you feel like such an adult. And there is this real enthusiasm in childhood about growing up. Kids want to grow up. They have no idea what's coming for them. And if they did, they might not want to grow up so much because it's a real. It's a real journey, as you and I and everyone listening knows. But kids are so enthusiastic about it, and you don't want to dim that hope for them. And so you give them these milestones that are so incredibly special. And to them, it's an all encompassing moment that they hang on to, you know, forever. And so the idea that this little watch, it has functions and capacities and features, right? It can call, it can tell you the weather, you know, you can text, you can be part of the family, group chat. You know, it's a moment of access and independence and security and all these things. But as much as anything else, if we're talking about giving your kid one, maybe you're thinking about giving your kid one of these thousand hours limited edition watches for Christmas. It's a milestone present. It's a milestone gift that you can package up with a message about them growing up and what that means and what the expectations are and what the opportunities. Opportunities are if you do it right. And, you know, and that relationship with your kid, I think, is enriched when you seize the opportunity to give more than a gift. But you give an experience, you give a conversation, you. You give a whole bunch of things. And obviously, every parent approaches this in a different way, but I hear that a lot from, from Cosmo customers.
- [40:07]
Ginny Ert
Yeah, you give like a charge. Like, look, you're growing up, you're gonna have a little bit more independence. I talked to this man, his name Sean Killingsworth. He created this movement called Reconnect, and he's in his early 20s and it's about getting together. I think you think this is really cool, actually, that he helps to organize events that are completely smartphone free. You have to turn your smartphone in, it's like your ticket to get in. And he talks about how his whole childhood was like this social wasteland and that, you know, everyone's eyes are down on a phone. And he cries about it. It. He does his keynote speech, it's on his website. And he's so emotional about it, as he should be. He's like, I lost my whole childhood. He was even homeschooled. He's like, every other kid is on their phone. And, you know, I had such a hard time finding friends. And he would talk, Russell, about how they dropped like flies at the holidays. And for their birthdays, he would be like, there would be one kid left, you know, and then Christmas would come and there's no one left, you know, because, like, the parents are giving these pieces of technology as gifts. And so I love that this is such a. A perfect alternative. We had one year, it was years ago, where we did get our kids iPads, and then we never gave them to them. We returned them. And I was so glad, you know, but, like, probably Christmas Eve, and we were like, this is not the right idea. We're not going to do it. But to give a piece of technology because, you know, it's an exciting thing at the holidays, you know, for Christmas under the tree, to have technology, but it's a technology that enhances childhood and doesn't suck it away.
- [41:36]
Russell York
That's right. I mean, technology, it has to be understood as not a single value proposition thing. There's good technology and bad technology. There's technology at the right time and technology too early or too late, right. It's not black and white. And I also think that maybe this idea around a movement about technology loses a little bit of its potential and momentum when it becomes too dogmatic about being kind of, you know, people sticking their noses up, right. And being like, oh, I would never let my kid do X, Y, or I would never. And, you know, for me, I run a company where we make products that are specifically designed to help, you know, families avoid smartphones and live these sort of holistic, crunchy lives that are, you know, digitally, you know, balanced and whatnot. And the temptation to be dogmatic is very strong and to preach. And I don't think that it helps. I think that there's so much understanding that's required. I'll give you an example, right? I know a family that has a kid who has been in the hospital for a number of months, and you're going to tell that family they can't give their Kid a tablet to pass those hours right when they cannot be outside and they cannot all these things, you know, and that's why dogmatism just doesn't help. There's so much understanding required in every situation and for every family. And that's why one of the things that we believe, and it's one of our core pillars, you know, central values, is parents know best. Let's, let's push the decision making to the very edge, which is parents, and let parents decide what's right for their family, for their environment, for this moment. And with that, I think that then it's just a matter of everyone else being supportive and informative and certainly not letting your friends sort of miss the moment if there's opportunities to manage their technology in a better way. Yeah, share a good idea. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think being overly judgmental can be problematic in trying to win over people that are, I think, all naturally inclined to want to raise their kids to be great people and bad balanced and, and all those things.
- [43:59]
Ginny Ert
It's tricky. It's a, it's a tricky time. It's a tricky time to be a parent. I remembered what I was going to say earlier and I want to bring it up because I think that it actually really applies. So one of the things that you and I have talked about quite a bit is the trust in our kids and that lack of control. For any human, whether you're a child or an adult, lack of control can lead to anxiety and depression. And in fact, Dr. William Sticksread said it's the most anxiety producing thing that you can experience is when you have a lack of control. And so many kids today have a lack of control. And I, I talked to this woman. So, you know, you learn to trust yourself, you learn to trust your kids. Anyways, she, she wrote this book about introverts and she was saying that your body, there were some scientists that said your body gives you signals about if you're lonely or not, just as your body gives you signals if you are hungry or thirsty, like your brain tells you if you're lonely. And so it was just an interesting conversation because with kids you don't really have a lot of control over that if you can't get in contact with your neighbors, like you may have this feeling that comes from your brain that's like, I'm lonely. I would like to go interact with someone. Like maybe your siblings are busy or, you know, you're like sick of playing with your siblings. You want to go find the Neighbors I just thought was an interesting, I guess an interesting piece. I didn't know that. I've never heard the science about that, but that your, your brain is giving you that information. And so that's another thing that we could trust our kids with, with is they're, I guess they're taking control to a degree of their own social lives, starting at young ages, because that's another thing that people are struggling with, is keeping up with their social lives. And so by being able to roam the neighborhood like kids used to, I think they learn a lot in those times of what they can do and how to build those relationships and when to listen to their body and to say, gosh, I'm so bored, I want to go play with some friends. Do most people know that there's a smartwatch option? I know you talk about there's a statistic that something like over half of kids under the age of 11 have a smartphone. It's a very, very large number. Over half of kids under 11. Do you find that the majority of parents know that there are other options like the junior track five out there?
- [46:09]
Russell York
Good question. I think, I mean, the data suggests that the most sold smartwatch for kids is an Apple Watch. And so I think that there's a significant number of families in the US that when they think about connecting their kid, maybe that's as young as 6, 7, 8, that they think, well, how about an Apple Watch? And I'll be the first to say that's better than a smartphone, right? It's better than an iPhone, if you want to do that. I mean, at this point, if your kid goes to a public school, for example, it would be hard to miss smartwatches. It's certainly become mainstream in the last three or four years. But I don't know. I don't know if everyone is necessarily aware of them. I don't think that everyone is aware of the optionality and the differences between products. And you do have products from a lot of different companies at this point that kind of have different angles on how they're designed and built. So, you know, if I was to explain the difference between a Cosmo Watch and an Apple Watch, it's that Cosmos built truly from the ground up, a completely fresh operating system with the values system of, like I said before, parents know best. So let's make a device that's truly parent customized and that exists, you know, within the realm of parent permission. It's much harder to get to that space with an Apple product where from the parent side, you need three, four, five different apps to do anything from controlling contacts to locating the watch to setting controls and all those things. That is not a simple out of the box experience. And the watch itself is not exactly designed for kids. Plenty of loopholes and back doors and you go read the Reddit forums about that. So there's a fundamental difference. There are truly family technology companies that have approached this from a zeros and ones, you know, binary code perspective and said let's build something clean from the ground up. And we're not the only ones. I want to be an advocate for the family technology industry. There are great companies that are building in this space. I've already called out Tin can, but there's a number of others that build kids smartphones. If you want something for a slightly older kid that's capable but not so capable. So look around, do the research, go to Google, go to ChatGPT and ask your questions. Don't go to Chat GPT with too many questions about the wrong things, Jenny, but you can ask it some things.
- [48:43]
Ginny Ert
Okay, well, well, okay. Since we're here. This is one of the tricky parts too, Russell, is that, you know, it's like everyone's low on time. People are going to be listening to this. It comes out December 1st. Go right now and get the smartwatch because it's free, first of all. And it's going to come. You can wrap it up under the tree and that will be one more thing you can check off your to do list. But, but you know, there's so many things that are constantly changing. Okay. I remember reading the other day about Discord channel and I was like, I think my kids have been on one of those and it was like one of the with but with a bunch of homeschoolers. So I was like, I don't know, it appeared to be safe, but then, you know, you read. There's so much information out there. I've never had an Apple watch, so I actually know nothing about them. And I understand that, you know, the parent should be the one that's looking into it and sort of like figuring out, you know, what are the pros and cons for my kids. But can you kind of give an overview of. Especially since you've probably read the random forms and you're in the space and parents are listening right now for the ones who might. I have the impression that Apple watches are really expensive. First of all, I don't know if that's true or not, but a little bit of a compare and a contrast is the Apple Watch, not the. And I know you're like so careful with your wording and I think that that's really kind and gracious of you, but is it like too adult for an 8 year old or a 6 year old or something like that? Or what are, what are the things about an Apple Watch? How can I say it? Because you're always so like, everything's positive. What are the crappy things about the Apple Watch? I can't get there. I don't know. What do we need to know?
- [50:19]
Russell York
You want the ghost of Steve Jobs to come for me and I just.
- [50:24]
Ginny Ert
Want to know what do we need to know? I mean, obviously you can't go to the Reddit forums, but I wouldn't have thought to go to the Reddit forums. And since I don't have an Apple Watch, I don't know enough about, except that I have in my mind that they're a lot of money.
- [50:35]
Russell York
Yeah, you know what, whatever your budget is, you know, maybe you can afford one, maybe you want to save some money, that's up to you. But I think, you know, what I would say is first of all, and I said this a minute ago, but I really think that reinforcing this is part of the point. Get your kid an Apple Watch instead of an iPhone. There's like a true fundamental difference between a smartphone and a smart watch. And so I'm an advocate for smart watches. Right. So just that's, that's my first point. Right before you like advocate for Cosmo or any of the other developers in this space, the form factor and the experience that your kid is going to have is going to be so much better for them if it's a small screen, limited amount of software in a parental controlled environment space. And you can get that with Apple. Right? So you can. Here's why. I think that some parents maybe need to read a little bit more about the Apple Watch before they, they elect to get one for their kid. Okay? So first of all, kid, as a kid is a kid. We get broken devices returned to us and we replace them free of charge. You know, especially if you're, if you have insurance. But you know, in a lot of circumstances, we will replace your watch, no questions asked. We understand. Kids are kids. Apple watches are fragile. They're primarily made of glass. If you are using it as a phone, you're using LTE and GPS on that device. The battery life on an Apple Watch is not an all day experience. So if your kid goes to school, or if you need them to, if they don't remember to charge it overnight or some of these things. So there's a battery consideration. It doesn't have a camera on it. If you would like to send photos back and forth with your kid or if you want them to be able to have the fun of taking selfies with their friends. If you want to put off that smartphone because the camera is one of those things. I can't take pictures, Mom. I want to take selfies. I want to send grandma a picture. They'll get you. They know how to twist your arm. Right. A camera is one of those things that completes the device. There's a lot of things around gps, accuracy and the ability of actually being able to track your kid. That peace of mind that we've built into our platform, that's seamless. It works out of the box. You can set geofences. You can get alerts when your kid leaves a space. Even if that's just, hey, they left school, they're on the way home. That's great to know. For some parents, that's an important update. So you know what I think about when I think about what we're building with Cosmo? It's an affordable device that takes 30 seconds to set up, two minutes. But it's so quick and easy. And when I say it's so quick and easy, I mean all of these settings are there for you. From adding approved contacts. We block a half a million phone calls a day to our devices from scam numbers or unapproved contacts. But you cannot call this product if you're not an approved contact. I don't know why my phone doesn't work that way because I get scam calls all day long, but I wish, right?
- [53:22]
Ginny Ert
Yeah.
- [53:23]
Russell York
So I don't know how we figured that out and the rest of the industry hasn't, but your kid is not going to get phone calls from anyone except for the contacts that you approve. You, grandma, aunts, uncles, the coach, the carpool person, whoever you want to approve, their friends, that's who they can call. You get real time analytics about who they're calling. You get to see their text messages in real time. You can see it. This is a training wheels product. You're introducing your kid to the digital world and you need to be able to come alongside them. We have tools for all of that and it's out of the box, ready to go. So that's kind of why we point people to our product. That's what we're trying to build. Is this just easy parent experience? It shouldn't be hard to introduce your kid to technology and set them up for success because if you point them in the right direction, then when they eventually, inevitably advance to the next smarter product, they're going to be better prepared.
- [54:15]
Ginny Ert
I talked to this woman named Jessica Joel Alexander and she uses the phrases, did the phrase digital independence. She's like, at some point the kids are going to come to you and they're going to want more digital independence. And basically I think it's a continuum throughout childhood. You know, they get a little bit, they get a little bit more. She has these really cool, cool. I think you think they're really cool. They're called raising digital citizenship cards. Like conversation cards you would ask at dinner. They're actually phenomenal. Like, what if you're in this situation? What if that happens? And she kind of, you know, talked about using those as a rite of passage, but that these conversations are conversations that need to happen. You know, this is made with the child in mind. I love when you said a kid is a kid is a kid. Honestly, I'm like, gosh, maybe I should be using one. I don't want people to call me that. I don't know. Yeah, I don't want text from anybody else. But the people I've approved. There's something to be said about that. And I, and I would hope that that helps the kid to feel special and unique and cherished because there was a time in life when the adult world and the kid world was a lot more delineated. And there's a man named Neil Postman who has passed away, but he's written all these books and he talks about that like that there's a book called called the Disappearance of Childhood that he wrote and he talked about how like there used to be adult programming and kid programming and adult clothes and kids clothes and the increase in technologies has really blurred that line. He actually says it was television was the first thing that really blurred that line because there used to be a more of, you know, a separation between adult and kid. And that gives you something to aspire to as a child. Right. You know, entrance into the adult world. But it also, it allows you to still be a kid. You know, I'm using a kid, a kid product, a product that's made just for a child. The, you know, you're Talking about the 13 under market, maybe even a little bit older. Delay, delay, delay. That's what everybody's saying. But I think there is something special to be said about. We made a product for a kid that's a kid that's a kid that's going to hopefully be climbing trees and jumping fences and playing in the mud and doing all those kid type things. Things and not some glass watch that adults wear. It's extending childhood in an appropriate way, you know, and not shortchanging it. So I, I love that family centered technology.
- [56:32]
Russell York
It, I mean it just should exist. Yeah, it's, I mean it's crazy that we have to explain why it should exist, you know, in a sense, because you're right. It used to be very obvious that there was a distinction, you know, but I, I think, I think it's intuitive when you understand that there is a distinction in what is technology for an adult and what. And that technology can be made for kids. It can be made for parents. Honestly, I would say that it can be made for parents who then determine if it's right for their kids.
- [57:03]
Ginny Ert
Yeah, yeah. You talk about, we are all about empowering parents. Big tech is all about undercutting parents to entice kids. We believe it's so important to empower and support parents while making products that are, are actually and genuinely fun and safe for kids. So this is fully parent administered, blocks all unknown calls, lets parents set approved contacts, safe zones, et cetera.
- [57:24]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
We've talked about that.
- [57:24]
Ginny Ert
It also lets kids customize their own backgrounds, take pictures and videos and have a slow transition into digital independence, which is what's needed. So the deal is before December 12 is the junior track five. It is a partnership, an incredible one of a kind offer with the 1000 hours outside watch band. I'll make sure, I'll put all the links in the show notes. Three months of service free. So you can, you know, you're trying it out, you get that first three months of service free. And you can see what a cool thing, you know, do you grow with it? Let them go a block and then two blocks or the idea of letting them go into the grocery store or Lenore Skinnies. He talks about these sort of let grow projects where you know, they get out and they do some things and then everybody ends the day feeling a little bit more confident and then the kids grow up and they can launch well into the world because it's coming, it's coming whether you want it or not. Whether you have an almost one year old or an almost five year old or an almost 15 year old, it's coming and it's a beautiful thing when it comes. But you want to make sure that you're giving the message to your kids.
- [58:29]
Sponsor/Ad Voice
That they've got this.
- [58:31]
Ginny Ert
That. Yes, they can. That they've got, you know, they've got the capability to make good decisions and to get out into the world and, and to make something of themselves. Russell, what an amazing deal. Thank you for this deal for the 1000 hours outside listeners and everyone is so grateful and thank you for your time with us today.
- [58:48]
Russell York
Thanks, Jenny. Always great to connect.