To be fair, kids don’t care about cheap plastic, and they love flashing lights and sounds.
Expensive plastic toys have the same flashing lights and sounds.
Though I’ll admit that even more expensive wooden toys don’t, they generally still try to incorporate play with light and sound into the toy somehow.
People love all kinds shit that is objectively bad for them... sugar, heroin, gambling, cryptocurrency.
> Expensive plastic toys have the same flashing lights and sounds.
The cheap adjective was unnecessary.
What's not on this list is... toys with flashing lights :).
That is to say, just because casinos use flashing lights and loud sounds too, doesn't mean it's bad per se. And, as I understand it, lights and sounds in casinos are more intense - perhaps they're aiming for light sensory overload.
And personally, I prefer my kid play with that one educational sound/lightboard we got (and that I keep repeatedly fixing after she breaks it), rather than do what many parents I know do - give their 1+ y.o.'s smartphones with videos to play with.
Can't the same be said of heroin, which in the UK is prescribed as a medication under the name diamorphine? Both of these substances can be safe in limited quantities, and both of them exploit vulnerabilities in human physiology or psychology that results in over-consumption being a very common outcome. One of them is strictly regulated when not banned outright, but the other is freely given to any kid who has spare pocket change, no questions asked.
Huh, no it was. I wanted to distinguish between cheap <$5 plastic toys and brand name $10+ (expensive) ones.