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The unfamiliarity has been attributed to a lack of childhood physical mementos

A growing number of young people from Generation Z are putting down their phones and picking up pens, joining letter-writing clubs and penpal schemes in search of genuine human connection.

Jennifer Bishop, who founded the London-based stationery shop London Letters, said her penpal club has seen a notable surge in members between 18 and 25 in recent years.

For a generation raised on digital communication, the concept of handwritten correspondence is entirely unfamiliar.

Ms Bishop said: "I think it's such an alien concept for them, as people who have never known post to be anything other than bills and spam marketing, to receive a handwritten letter."

She pointed to isolation driven by excessive social media use as a key motivator.

She said: "I think all of us, but Gen Z in particular, are craving real, human connection, and that's exactly what letter writing gives you — a physical piece of someone's mind and soul."

The scale of the problem was laid bare by a survey commissioned by the Marmalade Trust in June, which polled 2,000 adults aged 18 to 29.

Two-thirds of respondents admitted they had scrapped social plans in favour of spending time online, even as loneliness rates soar among their age group.

Nearly half said social media left them feeling more isolated, while only 30 per cent felt it genuinely helped them forge connections with others.

Perhaps most strikingly, a quarter reported that conversing with a chatbot felt less daunting than speaking to an actual person and 14 per cent had sought out artificial intelligence for companionship when lonely.

Ms Bishop said: "We know how negative an impact it [social media] can have on people, and I think the connection you experience to another person through penpal-ing is the perfect antidote to that."

The Government has also recognised the crisis, with a ban on social media for under-16s set to take effect next spring.

For many would-be correspondents, however, the practical hurdles are surprisingly basic.

Letter-writing clubs have begun offering workshops that walk participants through fundamentals such as where to place a stamp and how to craft an introductory message about themselves.

Rebecca McMillan, who runs the Sunday Letter Project, said many younger people have no idea how to find a penpal.

She said: "People want prompts for how to write an introduction about themselves, and I almost want to say, I'm sure you know what to say. You don't need to follow a guide book."

Royal Mail itself issued guidance in July advising customers to position addresses in the bottom-left corner of envelopes rather than the centre.

Ms McMillan attributed the unfamiliarity to a childhood devoid of physical mementos — no concert stubs, no cinema tickets.

She said: "Their whole lives feel like they've lived through a screen. A letter is a simple way of reclaiming a physical life."

Yet this budding revival faces a formidable obstacle: the very postal infrastructure these new letter-writers depend upon is being hollowed out.

Royal Mail delivered roughly 20 billion letters in 2004, but that figure has collapsed to fewer than six billion by 2025-26.

The struggling operator, which failed to hit its delivery targets for three years running, axed Saturday deliveries for second-class post earlier this year in response to the dramatic decline in volumes.

Stamp prices have climbed sharply in tandem. A first-class stamp rose by 10p to £1.80 in April, having cost just 95p as recently as 2022 — nearly doubling in the space of four years.

Dinah Johnson, who established the Handwritten Letter Appreciation Society in 2017 after noticing how rarely letters arrived at her door, said the appeal of post extends well beyond younger generations. "It's not just young people — older people are also fed up with the digital world," she said.

Her society now counts more than 2,200 members spread across over 40 countries.

Ms Johnson highlighted a benefit of letters that no digital platform can match: privacy.

She said: "Letter writing is the last bastion of that one-on-one communication, with nobody tracking what you're writing in those letters."

She recalled that when her organisation trialled a workshop for children, hardly any knew where to affix a stamp — and many had never received a letter at all.

Her warning was stark: "It's use it or lose it — if we don't start using our postal services then they will disappear as well."