Soft Hermitting Is Gen Z's Favorite Hobby, Survey Finds

Soft Hermitting has a name now, and a new survey suggests most young Americans are doing it. According to research from PapersOwl, released in October 2026, more than three-quarters of Americans aged 18 to 28 say Soft Hermitting — the habit of deliberately turning down plans to stay home — sounds like them. Of the 3,000 people surveyed, 77% identified with the description, while just 9% rejected it outright.

But the reasons behind the trend are not what the internet usually assumes. When respondents who enjoy missing out were asked why they stay home, money beat mood by a wide margin: 61% said it saves money, 60% said it gives them back time and energy, and only 29% described the decision as primarily about mental health. “Money is the loudest reason in the entire study,” said Jamie Thompson, PapersOwl’s director of cultural and behavioral insights. “People are not withdrawing from social life, they are budgeting it.”

JOMO is beating FOMO two to one

The survey puts hard numbers on a vibe shift years in the making. Half of respondents said they feel fine or even good about missing out — the joy of missing out, or JOMO — compared with 27% who said they feel anxious or disappointed, the classic fear of missing out. That is roughly a two-to-one margin, and it suggests staying home has stopped reading as social failure. The researchers note that many young adults frame the choice as deliberate: picking how to spend limited money, time and energy rather than simply withdrawing from the world.

One much-hyped antidote to the always-on lifestyle barely registers. Only about one in eleven respondents said they use a dumb phone regularly, reported by the survey’s press release — a sign that the widely discussed analog retreat is more aesthetic than practice for most. The takeaway from PapersOwl’s full findings is that young people are not necessarily logging off. They are curating their offline hours, and cost is the filter doing most of the work.

What Soft Hermitting means for your weekends

The trend reads as the social version of a broader Gen Z budgeting instinct. Other recent research points the same direction: a Canada Life study released this month found existential anxiety is weighing on young Canadians’ long-term savings behavior as heavily as cost-of-living pressure, with young workers drawing down retirement plans far more often than older generations did at the same age, according to Wealth Professional. Money anxiety, it seems, is reshaping both Saturday nights and retirement plans.

For readers, the practical lesson is the reframe itself. Treating a quiet night in as a budgeting decision rather than a social failure changes how it feels — and how friends receive it. That deliberate approach echoes other low-cost reset habits young people are adopting, from dopamine menus that structure downtime to the return of bowling nights as cheap, phone-light socializing. Researchers who study screen habits add useful context: it is not total screen time but fragmented, rapid-fire scrolling that tracks most closely with attention problems, as recent coverage of a study of nearly 3,500 students found.

There is a subtle signal in the data for anyone planning the night out. The survey lists depletion — running on empty after work, school or caregiving — as a leading reason for staying home, ahead of both cost and mood. That suggests the fix is not bigger plans but lighter ones: shorter hangs, earlier start times, plans that do not require a second wind. Hosts who read the room are already adapting, swapping late dinners for afternoon walks and ticketed events for free ones. The night in is not a rejection of friendship; for many young adults, it is friendship on a budget that actually balances.

None of this means everyone should cancel everything. The survey’s own authors stress that the mental-health framing “gets the coverage” while economics does most of the work — a competing interpretation worth keeping in mind the next time a think piece declares a loneliness epidemic. If roughly three-quarters of young adults are staying in on purpose and feeling fine about it, the more useful question is not whether they are withdrawing, but what they are saving up for.