By Alicia Tyler on October 22, 2026 Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Why young Canadians are staying in (and what it’s really about)

By Alicia Tyler on October 22, 2026 Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

From dinner parties to movie nights, staying in is on the rise. Explore why young Canadians are embracing the homebody economy—and what they might be missing.

Something has shifted in how young Canadians are spending their Friday nights. Across TikTok and Instagram, a new kind of content has taken over: candlelit dinner parties in tiny apartments, game nights, backyard hangs with a $12 bottle of wine. The aesthetic is cosy. The vibe is intentional. And the economics, whether anyone says so out loud or not, make a lot of sense right now.

The numbers back it up. A 2025 Samsung Canada survey found that 85% of Canadians now prefer movie nights at home to going out, with 55% saying they’d rather invest in their home entertainment setup than spend on outside experiences. According to Restaurants Canada’s 2025 Foodservice Facts report, 81% of Canadians aged 18 to 34 have cut back on restaurant visits because of the cost of living—higher than the national average of 75%.

For Gen Z and younger millennials especially, the bar—literally and figuratively—is increasingly somewhere inside their own four walls. Call it the homebody economy: a growing preference for low-cost, high-comfort social experiences at home over expensive nights out.

But is this a cultural shift, or just a response to the fact that going out has become unaffordable? The answer, according to consumer behaviour researcher Dr. Cindy Chan, is probably both.

“I think it is both,” says Chan, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Toronto Scarborough who studies how people derive value from spending and social experiences. “Things are more expensive........

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