So ungrateful! Just 1 in 4 write thank-you notes

THE joy of receiving birthday or Christmas presents used to be tempered by the knowledge that there would be a stack of thank- you letters to write.

However, in news that will delight children – and exasperate their grandparents – it appears that these hand-written expressions of gratitude are on their way out.

Almost three- quarters of adults – 73 per cent – admit they no longer send one after receiving a gift, and 51 per cent admit their children do not bother with them either.

The practice dates back hundreds of years, and it used to be expected that children and adults would thank aunts, uncles, grannies and granddads for gifts – even if many youngsters had to be coerced.

But 25 per cent of modern Britons now claim they are simply too busy to express their gratitude in a card or letter – and 84 per cent of 2,000 in a poll felt that saying ‘thank you’ was becoming redundant.

Some 24 per cent said they were unlikely to receive thanks after hosting a dinner party, and 18 per cent believed sending thank- you notes after attending a wedding party was no longer relevant. Almost a fifth – 18 per cent – said they had been stunned to have received no acknowledgement or thank-you after sending flowers to someone.

Yet 63 per cent said that receiving a simple gesture of thanks could make their day, while 92 per cent of us believe saying thank-you is a sign of good manners. The research – by Send With Gratitude, an online company that despatches a chocolate brownie and a hand-written thank-you on behalf of its customers – found that almost three out of ten Britons had been left feeling completely insulted when someone failed to thank them after they had done something they believed was meaningful.

And almost half – 47 per cent – of Britons have even lost

‘Small token of appreciation’

touch with a friend after never being thanked for kind acts.

in fact, receiving a thank-you card or gift is so rare that it has almost become a lost art, according to 36 per cent.

Send With Gratitude cofounder Ryan Grobler said: ‘ The research shows that receiving a personal thank-you and small token of appreciation in this digital age means a lot and can be done while not breaking the bank.’