Kim, an unmarried office worker in her 40s who lives in Seoul, feels heavy-hearted ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. The fact that there will be five days off from the 14th to the 18th is welcome, but the thought of going to the family home in Gyeonggi Province feels burdensome. The staple topic at the family table is not rice cake soup but "marriage." Thinking about the workload after the holiday makes the feelings even more complicated. In the end, on the last day of the holiday, Kim booked a consultation on a mobile mental care platform.
Digital and AI-based mental care startups are drawing attention. The Lunar New Year holiday is a time to meet family and rest, but it is also a period when family relationship conflicts and social expectations concentrate. In a culture where questions about jobs, marriage, and childbirth circulate, the psychological tension individuals feel rises. On top of that, fatigue from long-distance travel, disruption of rhythms due to irregular routines, and the burden of returning to work after the holiday overlap, leading to the so-called "Lunar New Year holiday syndrome."
To ease these aftereffects, more users are turning to non-face-to-face platforms such as mobile apps or video consultations instead of visiting hospitals in person. According to Atommerce, which operates Mindcafe, the country's largest psychological counseling platform, the number of users seeking counseling immediately after holidays such as Chuseok and the Lunar New Year increased by more than 20% compared with usual.
Founded in 2016, Mindcafe provides AI data-based psychological counseling services through its app. It supports chat, phone, and video counseling, and the cumulative number of consultations now reaches 4 million. Users can receive counseling immediately at a relatively low expense without visiting a hospital. In particular, the app-based service is accessible 24 hours a day even during the holiday, making it easy to use.
Fortify, which operates the stress management platform Mindling, provides mental care services based on emotional data analysis. The company analyzes users' emotional patterns such as depression, anxiety, anger, and loneliness, and through everyday stress management programs helps users recognize and regulate emotional changes on their own.
Experts point to relationship conflicts stemming from a family-centered culture as the background for rising demand for digital mental care services. They say social conditions such as falling marriage rates and an intensely competitive structure are increasing individuals' psychological burdens. With social stigma around mental health counseling still present, app-based platforms that guarantee anonymity and autonomy are lowering the barrier to entry for psychological counseling.
The trend of filling the psychological void after holidays with non-face-to-face services is also seen overseas. In the United States and Europe, cases of people reporting "holiday blues" after holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas continue to be reported.
As more people feel emptiness or depression after family gatherings, the number of users turning to digital mental care services such as the meditation app Calm and the psychological counseling platform BetterHelp is on the rise.
According to the 2025 annual review report released by the global meditation app Headspace, the Monday of the first week of January, right after year-end and holidays, was the day with the highest use of its app. The company analyzed that demand for stress management and mindfulness concentrates at the point of returning to daily life after the holiday.
The digital mental care market itself is also expected to grow steeply. According to market research firm Grand View Research, the global mental care app market is estimated at $8.9 billion (about 12.82 trillion won) in 2025. The market is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 14.6% to reach $17.52 billion (about 25.24 trillion won) in 2030. Rising social stress, improved awareness of mental health, and the spread of non-face-to-face services are driving market growth.
However, experts note that the limitations of digital mental care services are clear.
Jeon Sang-won, a professor of psychiatry at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, said, "Using advanced technologies such as AI to lower the barrier to psychological counseling is positive," but added, "These services can help with lifestyle improvement or relief of mild stress, but they cannot replace cases that require clinical treatment, such as severe depression or anxiety disorders."
Jeon emphasized, "Medical verification of the technology's effectiveness and sufficient institutional support must be in place, and users should also assess the severity of their symptoms and use the services appropriately."