As more Chinese youth live alone, new app bluntly asks: 'Are you dead?'

In China, the names of things are often metaphorical or jarringly direct. A new, wildly popular app among young Chinese people is definitively the latter. It’s called, simply, “Are You Dead?”

 

In a vast country whose young people are increasingly on the move, the new, one-button app — which has taken the country by digital storm this month — is essentially exactly what it says. If people who live alone in far-off cities and may be at risk — or just perceived as such — friends or relatives can push a button that sends an alert to their phone screens and send proof of life or the request of a friend or loved one.

 

 

It’s simple and straightforward — essentially a 21st-century Chinese digital version of those American pendants with an alert button on them for emergencies that give birth to the famed “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” television ads. But the app is deeply “Are You Dead?” became the most downloaded paid app on the Apple Store in China last week, according to reports. It is also becoming a top download in places as diverse as Singapore and the Netherlands, Britain and India, and the United States — in line with the country’s outsized use of loneliness and safety among young Chinese issues. “Every country has young people who move to big cities to chase their dreams,” Jan Liu, one of the app’s developers, told the BBC. “But in China, people are living alone in the southern city of Shenzhen for very experienced such loneliness himself.

 

Traditionally, Chinese families tended to live together or at least in close proximity across generations. That has changed in the last few decades with urbanisation and rapid economic growth.

 

Today, China has over 100 million households with only one person, according to an annual report from the National Bureau of Statistics of China in 2024.

 

Consider Chen Xingyu, 32, who has lived on her own for years in Kunming, Yunnan province. “It is new and funny,” said Chen. “I first saw it on WeChat. Some of my friends sent me messages that would appear on my phone saying ‘Are you dead?’”

 

Chen said the app provided a sense of connection with friends and family. “It gives a sense of ease,” she said.

 

The app’s creator, the Chinese business news website Jiemian, said in a comment that the app is about safety in Chinese culture and the need for people to look out for one another amid shifting living patterns.

 

Some Chinese social media users have praised the app as “heartfelt between close friends,” while others have found the name morbid or unsettling.