The warm glow created by the sight of a child safely tucked up in bed, may increasingly be down to technology.
Throw back the covers and there's every chance the glow will be coming from their cellphone, according to new research from the Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA).
The research goes on to detail children's growing exposure to and use of all kinds of media.
Bedroom television culture is on the increase, with more than a quarter of children having a set in their bedroom. More than one in five of the children who use their cellphone at night, do so after they go to bed.
More than 80% of children between the ages of 6 and 13 play computer or video games, and use of the Internet is also growing rapidly, the research says.
The research mostly steers clear of making judgements, but of course the list of harmful effects associated with excessive TV watching is well established.
BSA chief executive Dominic Sheehan says it can be hard for parents to keep up with the media devices their children are using, which in turn can make it harder to set the rules.
"There has been such an explosion of media in the last 10 years.
"A lot of this is new media. A lot of us didn't grow up with it and had to gain an understanding of it as adults.
"I grew up in the '70s. We read books under the blankets in bed at night."
Nowadays, children are more likely to be caught texting under the covers, he says.
The BSA research, Seen and Heard:Children's Media Use, Exposure, and Response, found that even though children have "very rich media lives" television is still the main form of entertainment.
More than 600 children aged between 6 and 13 and their primary caregivers were interviewed, with results showing 99.9% of children watch TV programmes and just over a quarter of children have a TV in their bedroom.
The number of children with a bedroom television increased from 18% in 2001 to 27% this year.
However, the research also showed children mostly watched TV in the family lounge and Mr Sheehan says he suspects TVs in bedrooms are probably being used more for video games.
Whether that should set minds at rest is an open question.
But it has been shown in the past, including by University of Otago researchers, that children who watch a lot of TV are more at risk of obesity later in life, even if they stop watching so much TV as adults.
The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit has found the association between childhood TV watching and adult obesity and poor fitness can not be explained by other factors such as socioeconomic status.
"It is actually the amount of time you watch TV when you are a child that makes the impact," deputy director Dr Bob Hancox said in releasing the results of their work.
The researchers have also demonstrated that children who watch a lot television are more likely to have attention problems as teenagers and are a lot less likely to have a degree by their mid-20s - no matter what their intelligence or social background.
Those who watch the most television are also likely to have the most health problems as young adults.
According to Dr Hancox there is little evidence to show playing computer and video games might have the same impact, but such games have not been around long enough to thoroughly assess their impact.
Asked about the BSA's findings, University of Otago psychology senior lecturer Dr Tamar Murachver said she thought it would be difficult to find any researchers who had found watching TV a good thing, but qualifies this by saying children embracing new technology is not necessarily a negative trend.
"It is true there are a lot of changes happening very quickly. I don't think there is anything we can do to stop it.
"Any time we switch technologies there is a bit of scaremongering that goes on."
Even when books began to become commonplace in homes, people worried about the antisocial behaviour of sitting in the corner reading, she says.
Using the Internet and some computer games can be both educational and social, she says.
"Watching our children on [web] sites communicating with friends - I think that is a positive thing.
"There are interactive games that are played over the Internet as well.
"Lots of times when children are using computers they are using them in a very social way. I've seen children playing a computer game with two or three doing it together."
Dr Murachver says she grew up with three encyclopaedia sets at home, but now she does not have even one set at home for her four children to use.
If her children are looking for information they can do it on the Internet, which is a great resource, she says.
There is "an amazing" array of communication websites for children where they can showcase their art or writing, as well as build online profiles about themselves.
A lot of sites restrict the access of other users and children learn about things, such as design, as they make up their own profile, she says.
"Maybe part of the problem is parents need to be educated a little more so they understand these things."
In her own home the decision was made not to get a wireless Internet connection so whoever wants to go online has to do it on the computer in the family room.
The BSA research shows many parents make agreements with their children about what websites they can visit.
However, parents are more concerned about what their children are being exposed to on TV than the Internet, with 84% of parents being concerned at least "some of the time" about TV, followed by 48% showing concern about the Internet.
Dr Murachver says some parents worried about the Internet and other devices such as cellphones being used for negative behaviour, such as bullying, but electronic bullying was not that different from playground bullying.
"It is the bullying behaviour that is the problem, not the cellphone."
Mr Sheehan says there is no doubt parental monitoring of the use of technology has become far more complex during the past six years.
"Parents have to have a whole lot of rules and regulations over a whole lot of media devices.
"Parents wanting to control children's viewing behaviour need to understand how that device works.
"Some of these devices open up different worlds that are not always safe. It is important parents understand that."
The Internet is "very different" from traditional free-to-air TV, he says.
"You can pretty much guarantee you're not going to get something very inappropriate on TV during children's viewing hours. You can't guarantee that with YouTube."
Reassuringly, Mr Sheehan says that overall, children are "really engaging" with a whole lot of different things and seem to be dealing with it quite well.
