Technology: Helpful or Harmful?

We have all heard the phrase (or even utter it ourselves) "when I was a child..."  Yet time have changed from when we were children and when our parents were children.  Why is it that things are so different?  Technology.  We now have more child rearing gadgets than they did even 20 years ago.  Think about it I am 33 and when I was growing up there were was not half the baby items that you would find today.  I wonder how my parents even made it with out the pack-n-play that served me well with my daughter.  This handy devise allowed me to have a bassinet/ crib where ever I went.  Or even better yet what did they do without the bobby pillow!  That was my best friend when I had my daughter.  Although we love the modern convenience of today have we ever stopped to think about how this is affecting our children's development?  Take the walker for example.  This was an invention that was around when my mother was little as well as when I was little.  Yet today you do not find many of them unless you happen to be at a garage sale.  Studies have shown that children today are walking sooner than previous generations.  Could this be because of the walker and it's lack of use today?  I guess if you look at it from the stand point that when children of a younger generation were using the walkers that they had to learn how to support their body weight even though they had the idea of how to walk.  Now with the lack of use of the walker the children are not only learning to move their legs but they are learning to balance their weight at the same time.  This could be one explanation for why children seem to be walking sooner than in previous generations.
Then what about cognitive development?  The newest thing that I see commercials for on TV is the reading system for children as young as 6 months.  Where the child is shown a card with "feet" on it and then they grab their foot.  How can this affect our children's development?  What are our children missing out on if they are reading at age two?  My pediatrician once told me that there was no reason to be alarmed if my daughter seemed to be lacking in one area but excelling in another.  She stated that her brain could only work on one thing at a time and that she would get to it.  My daughter was more of a climber than a talker.  She would climb on anything, jump, run, and what she thought was skipping sooner than others her age.  Yet she was not talking understandably until later on. 
I think as parents we have to be careful about what technology that we latch onto and what we don't.  There are some things put into place for safety reasons such as safer cribs and toys.  Yet there are some things that we have found out that we really don't need such as walkers.  Knowing who to listen to is also important.  Always question why?