"But is it wise to cloister our children away from these developments? Or is it better that they learn to adapt, especially in a world where the speed of technological advancement, and the addictive potential inherent therein, is accelerating at a rapid pace?"

No, but I think the timing is critical. I do think a lot about the right time to grant access to specific pieces of technology. I think my wife and I are more conservative in this regard than many of the people around us.

With the kind of people my sons are turning into, we're pretty happy with the results so far. Which is obviously a totally unscientific opinion, as we are not going to start running controlled studies on our kids. It's one of the difficult things about being a parent, you never know for sure what the results would be if you had made different decisions.

I would rather have my kids be well adapted to interacting with other humans versus interacting with wikipedia.

I guess it depends on how young we're talking when we say "children".

It's all up to each individual parent, but personally, for the early years, I think there is plenty enough to see, learn and experience in the physical and social world that there's no need to introduce the virtual world. Nor do I think that learning about phones, the internet, etc. at a slightly later age is a negative in any sense.