Am I Dead, Are You Dead?

Apps have become an integral part of pop culture, shaping how we think and how we relate to one another in both helpful and discouraging ways. Yet this growing aspect of popular culture is rarely discussed in depth and often gets overlooked when analyzing media such as movies and music. This may be because apps are still relatively new by cultural standards, or because they have become such an intricate part of everyday life that they are easy to miss even as they continue to evolve rapidly.

Some apps are created to help people navigate weather conditions and track fitness goals, while others are designed for conventions to help attendees find breakout sessions and main events. Still other apps exist solely to provide entertainment or to pass the time while waiting in a long line at Starbucks after ordering an overpriced, highly customized coffee. There are even apps that help people create apps without any real knowledge of technology or coding. The point is that contemporary culture increasingly functions through its apps. Without map apps, many people would likely get lost, lacking any ingrained sense of direction. What does that say about our current pop culture?

A recent example that highlights this dependence is an app called Are You Dead?, which was launched last year in China as a wellness check and quickly gained widespread popularity. Its success can be attributed to the growing number of people living alone, a demographic shift partially linked to the long term effects of the One Child Policy. The app itself is simple. Users are required to press a bright green button featuring a cartoon ghost each day. If the button is not pressed for several consecutive days, the app automatically notifies emergency contacts. While this app is less overtly morbid than the Death Clock app, which predicts and counts down the days until a user’s death, it still exposes troubling realities within contemporary culture.

Rather than taking the time to engage in regular face to face contact or personally check in with loved ones, this app allows technology to mediate care and concern. When viewed through the lens of hegemony, this kind of mediation starts to feel normal, even responsible, as it slowly replaces direct human interaction. Technology was meant to free up time for meaningful relationships, yet it has instead made daily life so busy that an app is needed to confirm whether close friends or family members are still alive.

This is not to suggest that Are You Dead?, or similar apps that will inevitably appear before this sentence is finished, are useless or without value. The larger question being raised is whether society has become so disconnected that it risks losing sight of what it truly means to think independently and maintain genuine human relationships while we still have the opportunity and privilege to do so.