When is too young?

[Motherwell91]

My DD turns 5 next month ex partner her dad wants to buy her tablet. ( his choice as it's his DD aswell). But I can't see why he would want to... we have a wonderful DD who loves her books and has a great vivid imagination and don't see why you would want to tarnish it with technology. He says were In a digital age if I like it or not. Am I being over sensitive and naive to think I'm not in the minority and 5 is just too young ?

No you're not being too sensitive.
If people are honest most tablets bought for children that young are bought as part-time nanny.
I have two daughters and with both of them I put off buying them a smartphone for as long as possible and eventually caved when they went to high school.
Growing up they were both avid readers and it was not unusual for them to have two or three books on the go at at any given time.
Within a few months of getting the phones they were rarely to be found reading a book.
Put it off for as long as possible.

Nope, it's not being sensitive. It's that just you want the best for you daughter. It's normal :)

Neither of you are wrong. As soon as she starts school she’ll have endless access to technology and if she’s not familiar with it she will feel left out.

On the other hand I think we all want that lovely, calm life, little darlings sitting in the corner building blocks or reading.

I think you can have both. I would let her have it and limit her access. I would add though that most of the scary stuff people say about technology now, they used to say about books.

Nope, It's not too sensitive. You just want what's the best for your daughter and you don't want that technology will completely take over her childhood. Although sooner if she get's older of course she will use technology but I think as of this time just let her embrace her imagination.

My kids got them at 6 and 5.

They're not really that interested in them tbh. They get charged once or twice a month and once the battery goes (quickly on a kindle fire!) it gets forgotten again.

You have to be so, so careful about what they access on the internet, apart from anything else. Parental controls don't work on youtube, for example.

It's probably like sugar - the longer you can keep them away the better but it is inevitable. The school I work in uses various iPad apps for reading and maths for reception age. The world they are growing up in is completely different and technology is so ingrained that they will be disadvantaged compared to peers. Maybe better to introduce it gradually and use it purposefully and for a bit of fun and entertainment. No worse than TV, in fact better if good apps. You can get YouTube kids and make yourself aware of good and bad apps.