Press & Media

New data · September 2026

Users are turning bedtime phone time into five-minute learning

Chunks analysed anonymised, opt-in product usage data to understand when people choose short-form learning instead of passive scrolling. The clearest pattern: usage clusters around the edges of the day — especially bedtime. The single busiest hour for starting a story is 9pm local time, with nearly a quarter of story starts between 9pm and 1am, and another 12% between 6am and 9am — the moments people most often reach for their phones without a clear intention.

9pm

the single busiest hour of the day for story starts (local time)

23%

of story starts happen between 9pm and 1am

12%

happen between 6am and 9am

27,832

stories played since 26 Jan 2026

21×

growth in monthly plays, Feb–Aug

“Most people are not going to stop reaching for their phones at night. The question is what happens next. Chunks is designed to give people a better option in that exact moment: a short, finite story they can finish in a few minutes, instead of another endless feed.”— Andy Shephard, Founder

Figures come from anonymised, opt-in product analytics, current through 13 August 2026. The “stories played” figure uses the PostHog story_started event (a user starting a specific story); raw audio-playback events are excluded, as they can fire repeatedly within one story. Time-of-day figures use each user's local timezone (derived from IP), covering the 86% of events with a resolvable timezone. Story-play tracking began 26 January 2026; completion tracking began separately in late January 2026, so the two are reported as independent counts rather than a single ratio. Analytics are roughly per-device, which can slightly inflate user counts. This is product usage data, not clinical research.

About Chunks

Key Features

Each of these works as a standalone sentence — quote them verbatim if useful.

• —Every story is a short, narrated audio experience designed to be finished in one sitting, typically four to eight minutes.
• —The library covers more than 200 stories across history, philosophy, science, mythology, literature and art, with new stories added regularly.
• —There is no infinite feed: stories are finite, split into chapters, and end — by design.
• —Every story is personally researched and reviewed by the founder before publication.

Founder

Andy Shephard — Founder

Andy Shephard is a software engineer with around 15 years of experience and a mobile developer by trade. He founded Chunks Microlearning in 2025 after looking for a way to replace doomscrolling with something genuinely worthwhile, and couldn't find a good solution. Every story on Chunks is personally researched and reviewed.

“I built Chunks because I wanted the ‘I learned something’ feeling instead of the ‘why did I just scroll for an hour’ feeling. Hitting 3,000 monthly learners tells me a lot of people want the same thing.”— Andy Shephard

Story Angles

A few angles journalists have found compelling. Happy to provide data, interviews, or reader promo codes for any of them.

What People Are Saying

TV & Video Appearances

Screenshots

Raw, unframed device screenshots at native resolution — free to use editorially. Click any image for the full-resolution PNG, or grab everything in the press kit below.