[TheBlueMarvel]

I was going to say something about not piling-on Parademon1 and remark that Ark’ers may be confusing his passionate stances for pugnacity and acrimony, but he seems pretty content to take on the entire thread…..soooo, I won’t be doing that.

I add the following, not to lend support, but to clear up a couple of things about what Parademon1 said that do (in fact) ring somewhat true regarding a wide spectrum of cognitive development vectors, youth-education, and current peer reviewed research. Now, I left a career in education long ago and no longer enjoy Lexisnexis-access to professional journals, but there is a swiftly growing mountain of research and complimentary reportage regarding the detrimental affect smart-devices can have on learning and cognition within children:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...s-and-toddlers

Language Delay: Kids Who Use Smartphones Start Talking Later | Time.com

https://www.theatlantic.com/educatio...ssroom/480231/

Kids And Screen Time: What Does The Research Say? : NPR Ed : NPR

That’s just five minutes of searching and skim-reading articles on the web – not a scholarly investigation of peer-reviewed studies, so take it however you want. That said, I do have an interest in these sorts of things and I’ve digested (both academically and professionally) numerous elements of the process of education. Kudos to jwyss234 for highlighting the importance of Head Start, you couldn’t be more right about its function to decrease the vocabulary gap between economically challenged communities and more affluent ones. The reduction of funding for these services, first at the hands of Obama and Boehner via the ‘Grand Bargain’ (not so ‘grand’ at all), coupled with this current administration’s attacks (not to mention the travesty that is one Betsy De Voss as the current Secretary of Education) on the program, serve only to imperil the future of our children and our nation by extension.

Anyways, back to toys…
@Dark
I didn’t mean to imply that I thought the phenomenon was ‘new;’ eBay sellers have been doing this from the start. What is interesting to me is that *Dorkside* (thanks Kirathis) and other online retailers of Hasbro products have legitimated what I consider a ‘hustle.’ I’m pretty surprised that Hasbro doesn’t seem to care. However, I guess they’d have no beef if the online retailer 'buys’ the product and then resells something that is now (technically) their property. I’d like to know a bit more about how that process works…