Most Parents OK With Letting Kids Use Their Tablets

Parents with tablets have no problem with their kids getting their grubby little kid paws all over them, according to new research from Nielsen.

Some 78 percent of tablet-owning U.S. parents with children under the age of 11 let them play with the devices in their homes, the research firm found in a survey conducted for its first quarter Connected Devices Report.

More than half of respondents, 54 percent, said their kids are using tablets for "educational purposes." Of those parents who didn't allow their children to use their slates, about a fifth said they'd change that policy if they could access more educational content on the devices.

Nielsen also surveyed a segment of U.S. children for its quarterly report. It turns out that kids who have experience using tablets are overwhelmingly positive about using such devices to access textbooks, with 71 percent saying they'd like to do so, according to the research firm.

Young people over the age of 13 who use connected tablet devices gave Nielsen the following list of their typical education-related activities on their tablets: Searching the Web (51 percent), reading books (42 percent), taking notes (40 percent), and completing assignments (30 percent).

Here's the full breakdown of what Nielsen found in the survey: