🌿 “Owning Less, Living More”: The Rise of the Simple Life Movement in America

🌿 “Owning Less, Living More”: The Rise of the Simple Life Movement in America

By Lisa Havers | July 7, 2025 | New York Times Magazine – Style Section

🏡 From Wall Street to Chicken Coops

"Ten years ago, I was working 80-hour weeks in Manhattan's financial district. Now, I clean chicken coops and harvest basil to make pasta with my own hands.”

So says Lisa Andrews (38), a former financier who now lives in Brattleboro, Vermont. She’s part of a growing number of Americans who are embracing what’s called the “Simple Life.”

In 2025, this isn’t just a fleeting trend. Sociologists see the Simple Life as a convergence of movements: a shift from ownership to being, a digital detox revolution, and a return to local, grounded living.

📊 The Simple Life, by the Numbers

🌱 Searches for “home vegetable gardens”: up 72% year-over-year

📚 Sales of digital detox books: up 115% since 2023

🐓 Subscribers to homestead YouTube channels: 5x growth in 6 months

🛒 Thrift clothing among Gen Z women: 48% report it as primary source

🔌 Reddit’s “r/nosurf” community: surpassed 900,000 members

Living simply is no longer a niche lifestyle. It's increasingly a response to economic pressure, emotional burnout, and ecological awareness. Americans are choosing to own less and live more.

🔍 Why the Simple Life?

Experts identify three major drivers behind the movement.

1. Psychological Liberation: Escaping Burnout

The post-pandemic work-from-home shift revealed how robotic many people had become.

Dr. Jane Miller, a mental health expert, explains:

> “We’re seeing a reaction to information overload, social media fatigue, and the addiction to productivity. People are choosing slowness—on purpose.”

2. Economic Realities: Sharing Over Owning

With skyrocketing housing prices and rising interest rates, excessive consumption no longer feels viable.

The Simple Life promotes minimalism.

Platforms like Airbnb and ThredUp now market themselves as part of the “simplicity economy.”

3. Ecological Sensibility: Reconnecting with Nature

Facing climate anxiety, Millennials and Gen Z are rejecting plastic, fast fashion, and disposable culture.

Over 1.1 million American households now practice some version of “zero-waste” living.

Some adopt lifestyles so gentle they avoid killing even insects.

🎯 A Trend, or a Survival Strategy?

Some dismiss the Simple Life as a hipster fad.

But Tom Greene, director of the Netflix documentary Minimalist Generation, sees it differently:

> “This isn’t fashion—it’s the backlash of overcivilization.

At the edge of complexity, people are rediscovering simplicity.”

He frames the movement as a postmodern survival strategy for the 21st century.

💬 Top 5 Simple Life Habits (per U.S. online communities)

1. Cook one meal from scratch daily (avoid processed foods)

2. Take a digital Sabbath once a week (turn off your phone)

3. Switch to second-hand or local brands

4. Read physical books instead of social media

5. Write a gratitude journal (three things daily)

🌅 Final Thought: Slower Living, Richer Life

America today is on a journey—not just to rural land, but to a mental countryside.

It’s a shift from having more to living deeper.

That’s the true appeal of the Simple Life in 2025.

> “Fast is fragile. Simple is strong.”

– Joshua Becker, Simple Life advocate