The Numbers Don't Lie

What’s up everyone. Loved seeing your feedback on last week’s post and pumped to have a few more new faces into the Slack community.

In case you missed it — A couple of weeks ago, I started a small Slack community of people committed to improving their digital wellness & would love to have anyone from this newsletter involved.

We’re having our first community call today which I’m pretty stoked about.

My only ask is that you are active (pls, pls pls), respectful, and open-minded. If you’re interested, reply to this email.

(Not worried about the other two, but a lot of people like to hoard Slack groups for some reason. In the spirit of intentionality, please don’t be that person lol.)

Alright, onto today’s post. Should be an interesting one.

I’ve always been fascinated by niche internet communities.

No matter what topic you are interested in, I guarantee there is at least a small group of people also nerding out about it in some corner of the internet. You just need to look hard enough.

Reddit is a goldmine for these communities, and probably the first place I tell people to go if they’re trying to meet others with the same niche interest.

There’s a subreddit for everything, but what most people don’t realize is that tracking the growth of these small communities is one of the best ways to predict future trends.

And let me tell you, the digital wellness trend has been booming.

For the last 6 months I’ve been a regular lurker and occasional poster in the r/digitalminimalism and r/nosurf subreddits (two completely different vibes, let me tell you).

Hell, a bunch of you on this email list probably found me there.

I’ve watched r/digitalminimalism grow from ~45k people to almost ~70k in the last six-ish months. Just check the stats. It’s more than doubled in a year, up 15% this month.

r/nosurf, the much larger, darker, and unfortunately sadder community of the two, also has grown over 12% this year, adding over 27,000 members.

Between the quantifiable growth and the goldmine of anecdotal evidence, this is clear proof that our society is facing a massive problem that will only continue to increase, with no clear cut solution.

Not to discount a lot of the studies out there because the data around this is already plentiful. But unfortunately you can find a study to back up any belief.

This, in my opinion, is way more telling:

• People are actively seeking out information and support about how to build healthier, more intentional digital habits.
  

• People are getting vulnerable. They’re struggling and don’t know where to turn for help.
  

• People are turning away from quick fixes and are instead looking for sustainable, long-term changes that can help them disconnect in a meaningful way. They’re beginning to realize that true digital balance requires more than just an app or a one-time detox.

Last week, I decided to post my most recent essay about “oh shit” moments in r/digitalminimalism. It was clearly well received.

The views and shares are cool (love a good dopamine boost) but I what I found most interesting were the comments. These “oh shit” moments were a universal experience.

Just look at these replies:

Plus some other cool ones further signaling the rising interest in the topic & some of the themes I mentioned above.

Bottomline: Digital wellness isn’t just a passing trend—it’s a wellness movement, and it’s gaining serious momentum. The growth of these niche communities, combined with the vulnerability and realness I’m seeing in the conversations, shows that people are hungry for change. They’re looking for a sustainable way to reclaim their time and build healthier relationships with technology, without upending their lives.

If you’re feeling that pull too, you’re not alone, and there’s no better time to take action.

I urge you to audit your own screen time: Where can you cut back? What habits aren’t serving you? Are there moments where you’re mindlessly scrolling or losing time to notifications?

If I can ever be of any help or you just wanna chat, reply to this email 🤝.

ps - one thing that I love about r/digitalminimalism is the members to online ratio. At least we’re living what we preach!

Resources

Digital Wellness Coaching: If you know you want to improve your digital wellness, but don’t know where to start, let’s chat. (This is the cheapest it’ll ever be)

Digital Detox Tools: A free directory of 75+ digital wellness products, software, and services. Access it here.

That’s all for this week. Stop scrolling and go do something great!

Randy