Earlier this year, one of the most popular programs in China was called Are You Dead?. This was not a game, but a convenient way for many young people living alone across the country, especially in cities, to keep track of each other. Users needed to log in with the app every 48 hours by pressing the big green button. If the user did not log in, the program notified the designated contact immediately. Designed as a source of comfort for those who worry about dying alone, this app became the best iPhone download app in China in January.
Then it disappeared. Apple said in a statement that China’s internet watchdog ordered the company to remove it from its Chinese store. The program seemed to contradict the Communist Party’s insistence that the Chinese people are the beneficiaries of the content of economic and social development. Instead, Are You Dead? it exposed the concerns of many of China’s urban dwellers, and showed the depth of the biggest social problem facing China today: loneliness. In cracking down on the program, Chinese authorities have made it clear that they are watching the public and don’t like what they see.
In a country of 1.4 billion people, most of them crammed into crowded cities, loneliness may seem impossible. But the rapid development of China’s economy and the adoption of new technology has changed the country from an agricultural, family society to an urban, industrial one, and many young workers live far from the small villages and provincial cities where they grew up. The isolating pressures of city life—the total urban population has grown by nearly 400 million people in the past two decades—combined with a culture that often encourages competition and the desire for status have created a sense of uncertainty, insecurity, and alienation.
Visitors to big cities everywhere feel lonely, but “the fact that Chinese people had a more traditional and tight-knit family structure contributes to that feeling more strongly,” Xuemei Bai, a professor who specializes in urban development at the Australian National University, in Canberra, told me.
Hang Nan’s story is typical. Originally from Linfen city in northern China’s Shanxi province, the 29-year-old moved to Beijing in 2021 for a job at an advertising agency. He didn’t know anyone in the capital when he arrived, and has struggled to make friends ever since. Ten-hour days at work leave little time or energy for socializing. “When you choose life in a big city, you choose more possibilities and more opportunities,” Hang said. “But you also have to accept loneliness as part of the price.”
Hang tried to find friends by posting on the platform’s social network Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, saying he was looking for people to join him for a coffee chat or a walk in the park, which helped little. Last year he also started attending something called “blind-box dinners,” which involve paying a fee to eat among guests. Beijing-based entrepreneur Lu Ming hosts these evenings for groups of about six people, who then split the bill. Lu said he started planning events in late 2024 and now regularly organizes them in major Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Guangzhou. People “feel isolated and really want to break away from their circles,” Lu said, “but they just lack the means and resources to do it.”
In many ways, the problem of loneliness in China looks like the problem of loneliness everywhere else. Going abroad in expensive Beijing or Shanghai can be a tight budget, especially for young people starting out on salary. A sluggish economy and sluggish labor market have made almost everyone more cautious about spending. Social media has also changed the way people interact with each other, creating a model of connection and connection in the absence of physical connection. After a long day at work, many Chinese enjoy looking at their phones on their couches, but wonder why it sometimes feels lonely.
A resident of Shanghai, who asked to be identified by his online persona A Ze, said Atlantic that, apart from frequent walks after work with colleagues, he meets people socially. He can’t afford many nights on the $1,000 he earns a month as a warehouse manager for a sportswear store, after paying taxes and sending a portion to family in his hometown. So he spends most of his free time on his phone at home instead. “In real life, relationships are only interesting when they reach a certain level where you can communicate,” A Ze said. “Being online is better, because you can talk freely and there is less pressure.” However, he admits to lonely times.
A Ze is not alone in avoiding friendship in China. Overwhelmed with work and pressure to succeed, many young people seem to worry about carrying additional burdens, emotional and otherwise. A 2023 online survey conducted by Internet software Soul found that nearly 60 percent of respondents said they had no more than two close friends. Many young people are looking for ways to alleviate their loneliness through superficial and temporary relationships. One solution that has emerged in recent years is something called a responsibilitiesan unconditional companion for various activities, such as playing video games and going to the gym. In a responsibilities relationship, there is no expectation that someone will turn into a true, long-term friend.
Yadan, a 23-year-old who asked not to be identified by name, moved to Beijing two years ago for a job in finance. She said finding new friends beyond her small social circle is “boring,” so she sometimes posts requests for responsibilities on RedNote. A responsibilities “It doesn’t have the expectations that come with a common friend or partner,” he said.
The rise of responsibilities the culture is understandable in a country where finding a romantic partner feels impossible for many. Chinese women tend to prefer partners with higher education, income, and social status, and they can afford to choose. The Communist Party’s population control policies, which limited multiple couples to one child at 35, contributed to a skewed ratio in which men outnumbered women—largely because families were quick to abort girls. This has condemned many men to be alone. “A large number of low-income or low-status Chinese men feel they want a relationship but can’t find it,” Zheng Ying, brand director of Taqu, a Chinese dating app with 200 million registered users, told me. Atlantic.
Another barrier to intimacy in China may be the way in which social interactions tend to be motivated by transactional pragmatism. “There’s a lot of emphasis on pay,” Zheng said. “People are always encouraged to think about the benefits: What will I get out of this? But loneliness or friendship is not something that can be measured in a numerical or physical way.” The cost of marriage can also be very high, especially for young people who are not yet established in their careers. with falling prices, trade tensions, and the looming threat of AI, couples are more reluctant to do so.
“Before, people just thought they had a good future — the economy, everything was good — so they had the confidence to marry,” Fuxian Yi, a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison who studies China’s population trends, told me. “But right now they are very pessimistic about the future, so they are afraid to get married and have children.”
However, marriage is not a cure for loneliness. Lionel, who asked to be identified only by his first name, grew up in a small town in the southern province of Guizhou, and now works as a video game developer in the eastern technology hub of Hangzhou, where he lives with his wife. But he admitted that the constant loneliness still brings him to tears. He attributed these feelings to his sense of insecurity in an economy where academic success determines social status. “The conversation often turns to earnings expectations, to assumptions about future earnings,” Lionel said. This makes him reluctant to socialize, because he feels he is being judged. “In the past, being a programmer in a big company was a glory,” he said. “But now, with the AI layoffs, your social identity can easily collapse.” His fear of being perceived as a failure has led him to cut “links with others to avoid the pain when that identity is broken,” he said. Lionel is very ashamed of these feelings that he does not even share with his wife.
Some Chinese find it easy to pay for friendship. Salome, as she calls herself in English, is a 30-year-old young woman who works as an English translator in a trading company in Beijing. For his part, he’s a cosplayer, or “coser,” who dresses up as male characters from anime, manga, and video games, then hires himself out for private meetings for about $35 an hour. Her customers are mostly women in their 20s who are looking forward to chatting with their favorite character and sometimes practicing their English. Some potential customers are clearly hoping to engage in a romantic role-play, which Salome tries to avoid because it makes her uncomfortable. But he understands the impulse, suggesting that these meetings are a safe alternative to more difficult—and often frustrating—relationships with real men. These women are “very tolerant of real-life men, and they’re not willing to let real men into their fantasy spaces,” she said.
In this way, China’s young professionals are similar to their detached, noncommittal counterparts in other developed countries. Perhaps the widespread feelings of loneliness can therefore be seen as a sign and a price for progress—but one that Chinese people may wonder about paying. This is why the Communist Party saw Are You Dead? software as such a threat. The party’s clear promise to the Chinese people in recent decades is that as long as they give up their rights, they will be rewarded with prosperity. If citizens learn that this wealth is actually mixed—intellectual, social, even economic—then this business doesn’t work.
Cao Li in Hong Kong contributed reporting to this story.
