Not speaking for the parent, but I have a similar feeling.
Imagine you are thinking about buying a car. You think about your needs, your budget, the different costs involved, the technical choices etc.
You are then bombed with very relevant ads for some car X that is suitable for your needs.
From that point, if you decide to go on searching for the best car matching your needs, you'll be comparing the models to the X car, and your vision will be tinted every time you see it in the results.
Perhaps that X car is actually the one that fits your needs the best. But until you make a choice you'll have to make an effort to discard all the promotion and overselling surrounding X. You'll be spending energy to ignore information thrown at you because you need to think at it independantly to compare with the other choices.
In this sense, I also feel relevant ads are pollution
Imagine you are thinking about buying a car. You think about your needs, your budget, the different costs involved, the technical choices etc.
You are then bombed with very relevant ads for some car X that is suitable for your needs.
From that point, if you decide to go on searching for the best car matching your needs, you'll be comparing the models to the X car, and your vision will be tinted every time you see it in the results.
Perhaps that X car is actually the one that fits your needs the best. But until you make a choice you'll have to make an effort to discard all the promotion and overselling surrounding X. You'll be spending energy to ignore information thrown at you because you need to think at it independantly to compare with the other choices.
In this sense, I also feel relevant ads are pollution