Does your grandmother live alone, far from home and you don’t always have time for a daily call to confirm that everything is going well? Chinese developers in their thirties found an unexpected solution: they developed a simple and reliable digital application, designed to reassure. For 1.15 dollars (around 1 euro), you install the application on your ancestor’s smartphone Are you dead? and get daily confirmation that your grandmother is… simply alive.
Concretely, how does it work? Users log in every day and press a big green virtual button, with a ghost drawn in the center. For distracted or simply overwhelmed minds, don’t panic: a reminder notification is sent. After two consecutive days without clicking on the button, the software sends an e-mail to the emergency contact, provided when registering on the platform.
Ultramodern solitude
A simple idea, which nevertheless offers a feeling of security to the millions of people living alone in China, and not just to the elderly. The country is simultaneously facing an accelerated aging of its population, the delayed effects of the one-child policy and massive urbanization which is leading some to settle in the city, far from their families. By 2030, the world’s second-largest power is expected to have up to 200 million one-person households. According to the Chinese state newspaper Global Times, the rate of citizens living alone will then exceed 30%.
Launched in May 2025, the application – also known as Demumu– is defined as a “lightweight safety tool designed for people living alone”intended to make “the solitary life more reassuring”. For the office worker converted to a solo lifestyle, the expatriate student from his native village, the single person or the isolated elderly person, Are you dead? can become a real ally, helping to reassure worried loved ones… and sometimes a little intrusive.
In China, the application has caused real enthusiasm, appearing at the top of paid downloads. It was mainly young people who installed it en masse. Demumu also ranks among the very first in the United States and fourth in Australia and Spain. “We are honored and deeply grateful to receive such attention.”affirms the small team of three developers in the columns of the Global Times. The co-founders now have their eyes on the future, eager to implement new features including integrated messaging.
The trend to live alone does not only concern China. In the United States, more than a quarter of households were occupied by a soul in 2020, compared to 7.7% in 1940. In France, eleven million people live alone according to the Society Observation Center, or 17% of the population. But this figure could well rise to 30% by 2050, according to several estimates. An open question remains: faced with modern solitude, will the French also adopt this type of half-reassuring, half-morbid technology?
