The share of adults in the United States who own tablet computers nearly doubled from 10 percent to 19 percent between mid-December and early January, according to research released today from the PEW Internet and American Life Project. The same surge in growth applied to eReaders, which also jumped from 10 percent to 19 percent over the same time period.

The number of Americans owning at least one of these digital reading devices jumped from 18 percent in December to 29 percent in January.

These findings are striking because they come after a period from mid-2011 into the autumn in which there was not much change in the ownership of tablets and e-book readers.

The Project noted that the holiday gift-giving season, along with lower-cost entries in both the eReader and tablet spaces from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, could have caused a significant uptick in the number of tablets sold over the holiday season.

In the e-book reader world, some versions of the Kindle and Nook and other readers fell well below $100.

These results come from ongoing surveys by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project aimed at tracking growth in the ownership of both devices. A pre-holiday survey was conducted among 2,986 people age 16 and older between Nov. 16 and Dec. 21, 2011.