Chinese app conducts welfare checks for young singles

It’s like a life alert—for the young and the undateable.

A popular Chinese app is helping to combat the nationwide autism epidemic by keeping tabs on single people living alone to make sure they’re still alive.

Known somewhat morbidly as “Are you dead?” Chinese state media reported that the app requires passengers flying alone to click a giant green button with a ghost on it every two days to verify they are still breathing, according to the Global Times. If they forget to check in, the app will send an email to the person’s emergency contact on the third day and notify them of possible trouble.

On the English-language site called Demumu, the developers said they reportedly designed the “lightweight security tool” to make “living alone more secure.”

“Whether you are a solo office worker, a runaway student, or anyone who chooses to live a solitary lifestyle, Demumu is your safe companion,” the page describes.

Since its debut in May, the $1.15 single status tracker has quietly taken the digital world by storm, becoming the most downloaded paid app on China’s Apple store.

According to Gizmodo , technology experts will be working on Are You Dead? “‘s popularity has been attributed to the prevalence of people living alone in Chinese cities – the impact of the one-child policy, rapid urbanization that separates people from their families, and other factors.

According to the Global Times, China is expected to have 200 million single-person households by 2030.

“People who live alone at any stage of life need something like this, as do introverts, people with depression, the unemployed and other vulnerable groups,” one user on Chinese social media said, according to the BBC.

One user, 38-year-old Wilson Hou, who lives about 100 kilometers (62 miles) from his family, said he downloaded Single Tracker so that his relatives could collect his body if he died.

Mr. Hou returns home to his wife and children twice a week, but he said he has to leave them temporarily due to a project, so he spends most evenings at his work site in Beijing.

“I was worried that if something happened to me, I might die alone in the place I rented and no one would know,” he said. “That’s why I downloaded this app and set my mom as my emergency contact.”

However, others were put off by the somewhat morbid name, with some suggesting they change it to “Are you alive?”

“Death is both literal and sociological,” said one social media commenter. “If it were changed to ‘Are You Alive’, I would pay to download it.”

Representatives from Moonscape Technologies, the company behind the app, said they would improve the product by “adding messaging capabilities” and carefully consider people’s name suggestions.

They also pledged to explore similar products catering to seniors – a must in a country where a fifth of the population is over 60.

It’s unclear if/when the app will come to the United States, which also suffers from a severe scourge of loneliness, especially among young people.

A new Gallup poll last May showed that Gen Z and Millennial men in the U.S. are the loneliest (25%), compared with 18% of U.S. women in the same age group.

According to the study, one in four American men under the age of 35 feels more isolated than their peers in other countries such as France, Canada, Ireland and Spain.