South Korean Gen Z turn to fake apps for stress relief without real-world cost

Young South Koreans are logging on to so-called "dopamine sites" — fake apps that mimic food delivery and smoking breaks without any real transaction or cigarette — as a low-stakes way to ease anxiety and loneliness, The Korea Times reported Monday.

Researchers say the trend reflects a generation navigating future uncertainty and deepening burnout, increasingly finding comfort not in real-world relief but in the mere simulation of familiar rituals — a pattern one professor links to a broader cultural shift toward indirect online experience, according to The Korea Times.

Kim, a 25-year-old office worker in Seoul, opens a fake food delivery app whenever work stress peaks. He browses menus, loads up a cart and watches a simulated countdown — but never completes the order. "It somehow feels like I actually ordered something," he told the Hankook Ilbo, the Korean-language sister publication of The Korea Times. "I don't end up ordering anything, but it feels like it relieves a little stress."

A separate virtual smoking break site works on the same principle. Lee, a 24-year-old college student, visits the platform during exam season and sees a real-time display of other users logged in at the same moment — no conversation required. "I'm not actually smoking, but it feels like I'm taking a break with someone, so it's strangely comforting," she said. "When I go on the site while studying alone, it feels like other people are struggling, too, so I somehow feel less lonely."

Both platforms are engineered around a deliberate absence: the missing final step. Removing the order button or the lit cigarette strips away cost and commitment while preserving the psychological loop of the ritual — browsing, choosing, pausing, connecting.

Kim Heon-sik, a professor at Jungwon University, told The Korea Times the sites fit inside a larger cultural movement. "Recently, there has been more content that lets people indirectly experience things such as alcohol, cigarettes and food," he said, pointing to mukbang — the genre of watching others eat — as an earlier expression of the same impulse toward vicarious satisfaction.

The professor traced the dopamine site phenomenon directly to the pressures facing young South Koreans today. "This is an era marked by uncertainty about the future and burnout," Kim Heon-sik said. "People now tend to find comfort simply in feeling loosely connected online."

For users like Kim and Lee, the value of these sites rests precisely in what they withhold — the final, committing step — leaving just enough ritual structure to ease anxiety without adding to the burdens that prompted the visit, The Korea Times reported.