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Over half of all UK adults and over two-thirds of 18-34s have admitted to ‘flaking’ on plans. These are just some of the findings from new IPA research, to be launched at the IPA Insight Summit today (13 March), that explores the phenomenon and feelings surrounding flaking, defined as ‘failing to keep an appointment or fulfil a commitment, especially with little or no advance notice’.

The research is based on a nationally representative poll commissioned by the IPA among a sample of 2,000 UK adults aged 18+research and was undertaken by Opinium in early February of this year.

Research highlights:

Younger generations are considerably more likely to flake on plans

While gender-wise, women are only slightly more likely to flake than men (53% and 49% respectively), there are significant differences in the tendency to flake between the generations.

Over two-thirds (68%) of 18-34s have admitted to flaking – and 10% of them say they do this very often. In contrast, less than a third (31%) of 55+s admit they do and only 4% do so very often. Bridging this gap, for 35-54s, 60% admit they flake and 6% admit to doing this very often.

A ‘flaking on’ to ‘being flaked on’ disconnect exists - while over half of all adults admit to flaking on plans, over two-thirds say they’ve been flaked on

There appears to be a disconnect between those who say they flake and those who have been flaked on. According to the data, while 51% of all adults admit to flaking on plans, 68% of people feel they are the ones more likely to be flaked on. These figures follow similar patterns above, with the younger generations stating they’ve been flaked on more than the older generations (18-34s: 78%; 35-54-year-olds: 76% and far less at 54% of 55+s).

Illness is considered the most acceptable reason to flake

Illness is deemed to be the most acceptable reason to flake on plans at 68%, with family obligations coming in second at 46% and weather conditions at 45%. This is followed by transport difficulties at 43% and mental health at 40%. Meanwhile the reason to flake deemed least acceptable is ‘not feeling like it’ at 14%; this is despite 22% of people saying they use it as a reason to flake on plans.

While general illness tops the board for the most acceptable reason to flake for all the generations, the second most accepted reason to flake differs among the generations: for 18-34s it is mental health at 47% (vs 31% for 55+s), for the 35-54s, it is family obligations (50%), while for 55+s, it is weather conditions (48%).

Concurrently, over half of all adults (53%) say that if their friend consistently cancels on them, they worry about them.

A third of adults lie about why they are bailing on a commitment last minute
34% of adults have lied about why they are flaking on plans, rising to 45% of 18-34s. The most common reason for this, by 46% of respondents, is that they didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings.

86% of respondents feel guilty for flaking on plans

Despite the prevalence of flaking, when asked if they felt guilty about flaking on plans, a considerable 86% of respondents stated that they did. Coupled with this, when asked which words they associate with flaking on plans, guilt takes the top spot at 36%, followed by disrespect at 24%. Meanwhile, when asked what words they associate with being flaked on, annoyance (37%), disrespect (28%) and rejection (26%) take the top spots.

Technology has made it easier to cancel plans last minute

In terms of what is impacting our flaking behaviour, 67% of all adults – with little variation between genders and age – agree that technology has made it easier to cancel plans last minute.

Hamish Bromley, senior insight analyst, IPA said, “This data provides a fascinating insight into the human psyche, particularly with regard to the considerable difference in the percentage of respondents who admit to flaking on plans versus those that say they have been flaked on. And yet when we unpick the words associated with being flaked on – annoyance, disrespect and rejection, perhaps this cognitive dissonance makes more sense. On which note, it is also interesting to see that despite almost 9/10 of us feeling guilty for flaking on plans, over half of us still do it.

“The data also provides useful quantitative evidence of yet another way technology is impacting our daily lives, in this case making it far easier for us to cancel plans last minute. As well as the rise of technology, it would have been interesting to see what these figures would have looked like should we have carried out this survey before the Covid lockdowns when people were generally out of the house more and before the patterns of socializing were so heavily disrupted. I suspect JOMO and/or the fear of going out, may well have increased since then, leading to an increase in the prevalence of flaking.”

The full IPA Pulse Poll: the trend of ‘flaking’ research is available for the public to download from the IPA website.