This new survey released by market research company, The NPD Group titled Kids and Consumer Electronics: 2012 Edition, shows new trends and stats for families and their mobile devices.

“Kids are using tablets to game, watch movies and TV shows, read books and listen to music-even occasionally for taking pictures- so they have embraced the utility of these devices quite rapidly,” Russ Crupnick, senior vice president, industry analysis, The NPD Group said in a statement. “Older kids also use the tablets for social media and communication, which squarely places these devices at the center for discovery and evangelism of new services and applications, as well as for brands and entertainment of all sorts.”

Portable digital music players (like the iPod) have declined in popularity this past year. Just 35% of households contacted for this survey own those devices, compared to 48% in 2011. Attention advertisers: Gaming systems and portable entertainment devices topped the list of devices over which children will have the most influence on future device selection.

The online survey was conducted March 6-21, 2012, to a representative sample of 3,235 male and female adults ages 23 and over whom are members of NPD’s online panel and have children ages 4 to 14 in the household.