[serf]

>Restaurants is a few places where a tablet is a godsend. Children aren't always involved in adults conversations, so they get (obviously) bored at the table. A tablet guarantees some time off to the parents.

as a fellow restaurant patron : I don't care that your kid is bored or if you can't afford a baby-sitter -- what I do care about is listening to the latest baby shark or whatever other youtube-brainrot-babysitter-program blaring near me while I'm trying to eat my linguini.

When I was younger if you brought a loud/obnoxious kid to dinner at a restaurant it was a sign that either you were inexperienced as parents or too poor to afford a baby-sitter (which then raises questions about eating out..), or otherwise didn't give a fuck about appearances or anyone else near you.

Also : not all kids are bored by what adults are doing, and a big part of getting good at those kind of conversations and 'adult actions' later in life is fueled by social mimicry and third party practice; to dismiss all children from such activities by directing their attention towards whatever the closest thing that minimizes parenting time and effort is , imo, likely damaging.

But, at the end of the day I gotta throw my arms up and say "Well, i'm not a parent." -- but it just seems obvious to me as a bystander that this level of forced autonomy and independence for smaller children reduces any chance that a kid will say "Mom, what does that word you just used mean?" and actually learn something from a novel experience. It reduces the amount the kids will read the faces of strangers and make social decisions. It reduces the chance that a kid will make a social faux pas slip and require corrections preventing it in the future.

It does, however, keep a kid busy , often annoying everyone else, while you gossip. I'm not sure that's supposed to be the end goal here.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Children don't get the tablet immediately, they eat without the tablet and get it when they are done, so there is plenty of time to chat, with opportunities for talking with the adult.

That being said, everything you say makes sense, but the reality is if you don't get a break every couple of months for a few hours, the parents don't perform, so from my perspective they (and myself) get a pass for the tablet.

As for the volume, they can lower it? I'm very careful making sure the volume is low, but I guess some people aren't careful.

This also assumes the children don't spend time with the parents. The parents could be spending many hours with the children so whatever happens at the restaurant is very small in the big picture.