Article about extreme lifestyle-minimalists

By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:01 am Monday, Aug 16

Kelly Sutton is a 22-year-old software engineer in Brookyln. He says he has gotten rid of all of his possessions, save for "his laptop, an iPad, an Amazon Kindle, two external hard drives, a 'few' articles of clothing, and bed sheets for a mattress that was left in his newly rented apartment." He has a some other items that he is unloading on his website, Cult of Less.

Matthew Danzico of the BBC has an article about Sutton and other extreme lifestyle minimalists who use digital technology to reduce their ownership of physical goods.

This 21st-Century minimalist says he got rid of much of his clutter because he felt the ever-increasing number of available digital goods have provided adequate replacements for his former physical possessions.

"I think cutting down on physical commodities in general might be a trend of my generation - cutting down on physical commodities that can be replaced by digital counterparts will be a fact," said Mr Sutton.

Mr Sutton sold or gave away most of his assets, apart from his iPad, Kindle, laptop and a few other items

The tech-savvy Los Angeles "transplant" credits his external hard drives and online services like iTunes, Hulu, Flickr, Facebook, Skype and Google Maps for allowing him to lead a minimalist life.

Cult of less: Living out of a hard drive