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Forrester’s 2012 State of Consumers and Technology Report came out this week, highlighting that nearly one-fifth of US consumers now own a tablet. In the US, 19 percent of consumers own at least one tablet, Engadget reported, which is about twice the percentage who said the same in 2011.

But while tablet ownership is up, the percentage of US adults that access the Internet at least once a month has stabilized at 79 percent. However, those consumers that do go online are more likely to do so on a daily basis. According to TechCrunch, Forrester found that 84 percent of US online adults use the Internet daily.

So who are the 21 percent of consumers who don’t go online, not even once a month? Naturally, it is older consumers. According to Forrester, “Gen Y” consumers are most likely to use their smartphone to go online, and the younger “Gen Z” consumers use the Internet wherever—more than 80 percent access the Internet outside the home.

However, consumers over the age of 67 are the slowest to adapt to new technology, though according to Forrester, 64 percent purchased a product or service online in the past three months. Also, about 20 percent of consumers ages 56 to 66 use mobile Internet regularly.

While the older consumers have larger hurdles to overcome when it comes to technology usage, the Forrester report shows the growth in various forms of digital tools, including tablets, digital cameras, connected TVs, and mobile Internet, have helped bridge that gap.

AP Photo/Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble introduced the ad campaign for the Nook HD and Nook HD+, the company’s 7- and 9-inch tablet and e-readers. The commercial, which will air across all major networks and is available on YouTube, highlights the ability to create separate profiles for each users, allowing an entire family to share the device—if you can steal it away from everyone else. Here’s the ad spot:

“We ultimately zeroed in on something we knew was important to our customers and unique to these devices: they are at once totally personal and completely shareable,” said Glenn Kaplan, creative director at Barnes & Noble, in a statement about the ad campaign. “We recognized the opportunity to create a story these customers could relate to.”

Mashable reports that the Profiles feature isn’t unique to Nook tablets—Amazon’s latest version of the Kindle Fire also has a similar feature—but Barnes & Noble was the first to offer such an ability.

Forrester Research predicted that there will be 29.4 million US  consumers with e-readers by 2015. Additionally, in February 2012, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 21% of all US adults had read an e-book in the past 12 months.

“Those who read e-books are more likely to be under age 50, have some college education, and live in households earning more than $50,000,” Pew noted in its report [PDF].

While this data is nearly 10 months old at this point, we can surmise that the number of adults owning e-readers and reading e-books has continued to rise. As individuals and families embrace the B&N Nook and other devices—no matter what feature they like the best—using tablets and e-readers for educational and pleasure reading will be a trend in 2013.

Do you own one? Is it on your holiday wish list?