Today for Me. Yesterday for Them.

I'm a child of the 70's. My brother and I walked to the neighbors house to play, and actually got up off the burnt orange sofa (gasp!) to rotate the dial on the TV. When MJ passed, I remembered that a friend and I recorded ourselves (using two entirely separate recorders!) singing the whole Thriller album, and mailed it to the King of Pop. All of this sounds ancient now, because it is. My daughter turned two yesterday, and as I stared into her sweet hazel eyes, I wondered: what does it mean for kids to grow up in today's high tech, social-media-crazed era?

I'm an early adopter of technology, and--I'll admit it--I find Facebook and Twitter fascinating. I used to make fun of my husband (an uber-early adopter) for using social media. Seriously? You care what book Lance Armstrong is reading? Then, I bit the bullet and joined "Crackbook." The next day I had 50 emails from friends near and far. Um, you could say I was hooked.

As a parent, I find today's technology invaluable. Facebook lets me see a friend's swaddled newborn 3,000 miles away--just minutes after arriving into the world. I've read tweets on cool products for moms, and picked up priceless parenting advice on Twitter. My iPhone's least valuable function is making actual phone calls. To do lists, latest news, baby logs, white noise, you name it -- there's an app for that. Out of town family can even play a daily cyber role raising wee ones via Skype.

But here's the truth: I am a total hypocrite. I love the 2.0 world for me, but I hate it for my kids. (Until they are old enough, of course.) My eight-month-old son is too young for technology (phew!) but my two year old's proficiency with the iPhone scares me. She picks it up, selects the correct app, and scrolls through the touch screen like she is on commission for an Apple ad. It's frightening. Internet at age five? Cell at age seven? Social networking sites at eight? No. Frickin. Way. Which is a better image: your seven-year-old carrying his lunch box, walking to the swing set at Mrs. Frazier's house or your little peanut tweeting with one hand, texting with the other and listening to his iPod while drinking his lunch.

Bottom line: preserve the old fashioned childhood. World 2.0 will still be there when youth has passed, but the days of swinging way-up-up-high, however, may not.

Jackie Ashton writes Baby Brain and is the founder of Baby Brain, the ultimate iPhone app for parents.