Actually, it's an investment of sorts. Parents buy that stuff so they have to spend less time taking care of their kids. Same as putting small kids in front of the TV. The easy way out. I had an appointment yesterday with a potential client who wanted to show me an apartment she and her husband own. The lady shows up with a 6yo daughter and a baby boy in a stroller. The daughter has a smartphone, barely takes her eyes off it to say hello to me. The whole time (walking to the elevator, in and out of the elevator, etc...) she's glued to that thing. Funny thing, the mother leaves her kids outside of the apartment so she won't get bothered by them. mind you, the baby boy is asleep at that moment. The kids are in the corridor and suddenly some loud shitty music starts. That little girl had her "playlist" of shitty tunes (3 tunes max) on her smartphone at maximum volume. Needless to say, her little brother wakes up. Mother seems annoyed but continues to go on with our business talk. That girl was putting the same extracts of those tunes (about 10s of those 3 tunes) over and over again at a volume that would have scared Lemmy Kilmister. I didn't want to be rude but I really felt like telling her mother to take care of this. Not once did she say a thing. That crap went on for about ten minutes 'til i could go.
