When Did “No Problem” Replace “You’re Welcome”?

It is about time for another social commentary……..

We both grew up being taught the liberal use of please and thank you.  But in our era, the standard response for thank you was “you’re welcome”.  But in the last few years we have noticed that more and more “you’re welcome” has been replaced by “no problem”.  You go into most restaurants anymore and receive your food and your thank you is met with “no problem”.  We thought maybe this was just a Michigan thing, but as we travel about we find that it has hit every area we have have traveled in.  Now there are times when a “no problem” is a good and appropriate response.   For example, you ask someone at the campground to give you a quick bit of help with something and you say thank you.  In this case a “no problem” is an indication that your request wasn’t an inconvenience.  Maybe we are old fashioned, but for us the appropriate response at a restaurant to “thank you”  is “you’re welcome” and we cringe a bit each time we hear “no problem” and we find that we are doing a lot of cringing anymore.