Three research studies from the US and New Zealand have shown the damage done to children’s development and educational progress if they have a television in their bedroom. These children do worse at school and are less likely to get a university degree.

It should not surprise anyone. If children have a telly in their room, they will watch it instead of reading a book in bed. They will stay up too late and get too little sleep. And they will end up viewing grossly unsuitable trash. What’s the point of a watershed if your child can happily watch Horny Housewives on his own later — and without your supervision? Yet three quarters of British 11 to 14-year-olds have a television in their bedroom. As a result, they are reading too little and sleeping too little (not to speak of watching too much porn). No wonder their schoolwork suffers.

But there is another problem with planting televisions in every room of the house: it leads to the fragmentation of the family.

If children are not watching television in their bedrooms, the chances are that they are playing computer games there. Or maybe they are viewing a favourite DVD. Whatever, it means that they spend an inordinate amount of time on their own.

We hear a lot about the breakdown of families: of separation, divorce and lone parenthood. But even families who live together under one roof now spend more time than ever apart. For technology is a seriously atomising influence.

Before central heating, there was usually only one warm room in the house. Families congregated around the fire in the sitting room. Bedrooms were cold and unwelcoming, places to which you scuttled, undressed as quickly as possible and leapt under layers of blankets in thick pyjamas. Now every room in the house is equally warm, which means that family members can more easily disperse.

And there is more to do in each room. Once, families had just one television, which everybody watched communally like the Royle family. And if there was nothing good on telly, they used to argue over which video to watch, but at least they watched it together. Now DVD players are so cheap that they have propagated all over the house, along with the televisions.

Then there are computer games. Yes, they can be played with others, but the others are less likely to be parents or siblings than anonymous combatants on the internet. How different from a game of Monopoly or rummy on the table after supper! Even supper is less often eaten as a group, thanks to technology. The microwave has made separate meals for different family members much easier to prepare. No longer do children have to rely on their mother producing the same food at the same time for everyone.

All these technological innovations are terrific. I wouldn’t for a moment want to go back in time to cold houses or flickering black and white televisions. But we, as parents, have to be aware of their fragmenting force and stand up to it if we want to encourage family solidarity and communication with our children.

Above all, it is important to say no. No, you can’t have a television in your bedroom. No, you can’t have your computer in there. Bedrooms are for reading, sleeping and, at a pinch, listening to music. Other activities should be communal, or should at least take place in a communal room, such as the kitchen.

You can also insist on your children eating together, with you, in the evening and at weekends. Mealtimes are the best forum for family conversation. If one parent has gone to the effort of cooking a communal meal, the least the children can do is join in.

You can even — doesn’t this sound old-fashioned? — resort to the lowest-tech form of family fun, the card game. We still have hilarious games of racing demon, which become faster and more furious the more participants there are.

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