Why Is Minimalism So Popular Right Now?

Why is minimalism so popular right now? The question gets asked a whole lot since minimalism hit the mainstream and became oh so popular. It’s in the water; it’s also in our homes, our products, our technology, and even our clothing. “Simpler, please” is the battle cry of the generation.

Sure, there will always be those who are just keeping up with the trends but the trends themselves are here for a reason.

Humans are incredibly adaptable. Look at all of the changes that occur decade after decade, over hundreds and thousands of years. We adapt quickly and often. The primary factors that make minimalism so popular right now have less to do with aesthetics and more to do with adaptation.

If you’re wanting more information on what minimalism is and where it came from you can find that in my article, ‘What is Minimalism and Where Did it Come From?’.

Can’t Buy Me Love…Or Happiness (For The Most Part)

You may have heard of the 2010 Princeton study that showed that people tend to feel happier the more money they make, up until a point, which they estimated to be about $75,000 a year per person.

More recently, psychologists from Purdue University and the University of Virginia analyzed data from 1.7 million people across 164 countries and calibrated that the “ideal income for individuals is $95,000 a year for life satisfaction and $60,000 to $75,000 a year for emotional well-being.” More for families with kids.

The increase makes sense with inflation over a decade.

They also found that once that threshold was reached, more money was actually associated with reduced happiness.

Now, I know this is talking about money but there’s a similar threshold to happiness we can get from things. Excitement and enjoyment for ‘things’ are fickle and fleeting. When the floodgates of belongings open, each belonging has less of the potential to make you happy (have you ever seen a 4-year-old open Christmas presents?).

Not only does stuff not make you indefinitely happier… studies show that TOO much stuff actually makes you stressed and unhappy.

The Agony Of Too Much

There are tons of articles and research studies out there that directly link cluttered environments to stress, health, and wellness issues.

Like the UCLA study that studies 32 middle-class families and found that “all of the mothers’ stress hormones spiked during the time they spent dealing with their belongings.”

A 2016 Cornell University study found that subjects in cluttered and chaotic environments ate more junk food than those in the standard environment.

Depression, anxiety, stress, decreased focus. It all makes sense when your space becomes a source of overwhelm. Essentially, as humans, too much is often…too much. More than ever we need to learn to select and reject in order to protect our brain capacity and our homes. 

We Have A Need For Rejecting.

We live in a time of pure magic. The evolution of the internet and technology is something we all take for granted, but it’s nothing short of scientific magic. It has literally transformed the world we live in, as much as if we were all transported to fictitious fantasy land.

Times have changed

Maybe at one point in time, our options were limited – if your dad was a farmer, you learned to farm. Your inherited life situation dictated most of your life decisions. Not only has society evolved to allow for nearly boundless opportunities, but the internet has put at our fingertips knowledge and access to….everything.

It has changed the way our environments look and feel, how we communicate with one another, and of course how we consume. But this vast potential opens up Pandora’s box with too much information, too many options, and a plethora of convenient and cheap purchasing options.

People are overloaded and have very little time and patience for dealing with mounds of clutter. These advancements have brought with them a need for simplicity. In order to simplify, we have to reject.

We, of course, reject all the time.

You can’t choose one thing without rejecting something else.

If you go to college and choose a degree, you’re thereby rejecting all other degree options. Sure, you can get a few degrees if you want but you’re still rejecting many others. This is a good thing because you can’t prioritize and achieve great things in one area without NOT prioritizing everything else.

Every person who has ever succeeded in achieving great things has let go of achieving in another area. In a way, minimalism uses this process of selecting and rejecting as an adaptation to a society of ‘too much’.

The Practicalities Of A Sucky Economy.

Let’s be real.

Things just aren’t as affordable as they used to be due to a variety of factors like recessions and inflation. That “American dream” of owning a home with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths is not a possibility for many people without going into great debt. A lot depends on where you live so there’s a choice of environment vs castle.

And there are a lot of experiential opportunities that come with choosing the environment over the castle. Again, you’re forced with the choice of what to reject. But remember people are amazingly adaptable.

The same way we adapted to the expectation of the mini-mansion we can (and have) adapted to the idea of a more mobile less rooted lifestyle, tiny houses, and trends toward style and function over size.

We Heart The Environment.

The Earth’s population is higher than it has ever been. World population meters show that while there were roughly 3 billion people alive on Earth in 1960, there are 7.6 billion today and growing. That’s twice as much waste and damage done to the environment.

It’s just math. It isn’t that the new generation is a bunch of tree-hugging hippies. It’s that there is a legitimate change in the population vs. environmental landscape.

Many scientists believe that Earth’s resources will cap out at an upper limit of 10 billion people. 

Harvard University sociobiologist Edward Wilson wrote a book about it, “The Future of Life”, where he explains why 10 billion is the upper limit. This is just another factor making minimalism so popular (and necessary) right now.

Depending on where you live, you might be feeling the burn. People in more rural, spread-out areas don’t see the damage as much as more densely populated regions. If we consume as much today as our grandparents and great-grandparents, we’re doing twice as much damage because there are so many more of us now.

Shrink it down. If you have a giant hamster cage with 10 hamsters, you aren’t going to have space for each hamster to have its own play structure. Especially if the play structure is operating on pollutant gases. The hamsters would die. At the very least you would have to clean the cage more often.

What does this mean? It means that it’s never a bad thing to consume less. In fact, when our population is as high as it is, it’s a wise and responsible thing to consume less.

Why Minimalism Is So Popular

Here is what The Association For Consumer Research has to say about factors of why minimalism so popular:

"In times of growing public awareness of ecological and sustainability concerns, the boom of tiny houses in light of rising house prices, as well as increasing flexibility and mobility demanded by modern working life, minimalism has gained large popularity in the U.S. and beyond as an attractive way of living. In the popular media, minimalism describes a way of living with less—often accompanied by the endorsement of a rigorous decluttering philosophy. In the scientific literature, the research field of anticonsumption has intensively studied the intentional avoidance of consumption in light of consumers’ responsibility regarding environmental, ethical, and socio-political matters."

Minimalism in Material Possessions: Theory and MeasurementLisa Eckmann, Goethe University Frankfurt
Jan R. Landwehr, Goethe University Frankfurt

Honestly, I don’t believe that you have to live a lifestyle of lack and unhappiness in order to minimize and experience the benefits of living a more minimal life. From micro to macro considerations it’s a smart and healthy way to live. But if you’re wondering why this fad is taking over your YouTube feed- well, here are just a few reasons.