Don't send me a postcard! Use of social network sites mean just 3% of us send a jolly holiday note through the post
The days of the holiday postcard are numbered due to the rise of texts and social networking sites.
Forty years ago, around a third of Brits would send a card home.
Today, just 3 per cent of us make the effort, instead preferring to text or even Tweet a picture.
Sending a message home: In the 1970s a third of Britons would send postcards, such as this one of small seaside village Jaywick near Clacton-on-Sea, in Essex, to families and friends to give a glimpse of their holiday
Comedy greeting: Humorous postcards about big occasions, such as this 1908 Leap Year card, are also becoming a thing of the past
The study, by market research group Mintel, was part of a Jubilee investigation into changing British consumer tastes.
Analyst Alexandra Richmond said: ‘Younger Britons may never have experienced the joy of receiving a postcard in the age of social media and many others may have forgotten the sensory experience a writing set gives the sender.
‘We’re travelling more and we’re also more connected than ever before.’ Technological advancement means Brits now regularly send a text or digital photograph from their mobiles to friends and relatives or even send emails to inform friends of their holiday experiences, further indicating that electronic communications have taken over.
Memento: Postcards would also be kept as souvenirs from holidays and trips to famous landmarks such as Trinity College in Dublin pictured above
Modern technology changing the times: But now people prefer to text or tweet a picture of their holidays to friends and family rather than send a postcard
Another factor in the postcard’s decline is the increase in the number of holidays people now take.
Miss Richmond added: ‘It’s easier to tweet a picture, update our Facebook status or send a text to make people back in Blighty envious, enabling real-time holiday updates rather than waiting a few weeks for a ‘wish you were here’ postcard.
'Health, convenience and travel have all had a major impact on consumer habits over the past 40 years.
'But while many of our habits have changed, such as letter writing and sending postcards, some elements of British behaviour are ingrained in the nation’s psyche such as our love of fish and chips and DIY.’
The research also found that postcards are not alone in losing their stamp of approval, with the number of those buying writing sets having declined from almost one in five (18 per cent) in 1972, to just 5 per cent today.
The first known picture postcard was a hand-painted one, sent to London to writer Theodore Hook in 1840 and bearing the Penny Black stamp.
Postcards first started to be printed in the UK in 1984, with cartoon-style saucy postcards becoming widespread in the 1930s.