I have been using computers for well too many years, and have seen many coworkers who suffered physically because of their overuse (because they could not avoid using it well too many hours each work day.) The title of this thread includes “too early”. I think the question is about the use of technology at an age that is too young.
I still think young kids do not have to have too much exposure to these technology gadgets. If the young generation really want to get into it, it does not take too much efforts to get into it later on. Also, the hottest technology a child is exposed to when he is 6 years old is likely very obsolete when he enters the college anyway. A lot of technology that seems to be hard is partly because it is either poorly designed or it is an unfinished/unpolished product and/or it is due to the poor documentation. It is of little value to have too much exposure to the technology when a child is very young. It ain’t that valuable for a young kid’s education, IMHO. But I think not everyone would agree with me on this, and we could agree to disagree.
My kid did play with lego – he had lots of them (but not Mindstorm – it was not very polished when my child was that age.) and sims. The moderation is the key. The best thing you as parents could give to the child is your time (for you to play with him, with either traditional toys or newer gadgets.) The key seems to be the quality time with the kid rather than what kind of gadget it is.
An example, when our child learned the concept of place value, I used physical objects (that I hunt down and/or created) to let him play with his hands. I would not want to use the virtual objects on the computer screen (I would not use “work sheets” either.)
Guess what, the toy-like objects/models we used for learning this when he was in elementary school turned out to be quite similar to some models that were recommended (by his professor) to be used in his college organic chemistry class. If the college students could use physical models to learn things, how would you object to the same method to learn things at the early elementary school level?!