About 1in8B · who you are is drawn, not chosen

What is 1in8B?

1in8B is a free life simulation that runs in your browser. You are born at random as one of the babies being born on Earth today and live that one person's whole life — childhood, school, work, family, old age — inside the real statistics of 172 countries and territories. Nothing to install, no account: open the site and play.

How is the country of birth decided?

By default the country is drawn in proportion to the number of babies born there each year, so a birth in India or Nigeria is far more likely than one in Korea or Germany. You can switch the draw to today's world population instead. The country cannot be chosen, and paying never changes it; sex and the family's means follow real shares too.

Where do the numbers come from?

Births, life expectancy, schooling, income and health come from public statistics for 172 countries and territories — chiefly the UN World Population Prospects, the World Bank and WHO. Each life is fiction written from those statistics: a way to feel the data, not a forecast of any person's future.

How long does one life take?

A year passes in a few seconds at the fastest pace, so a whole life usually takes a few minutes. Each year you choose a focus, and along the way life events ask for decisions — small ones and large ones.

Where are my lives kept?

In this browser. Your current life, past lives, diary notes and settings stay on your device. The optional Cloud Life Keep stores completed lives on our server so you can restore them in another browser; the game itself stays free and unchanged.

Can I share or stream?

Yes. Share the ending card, your past-lives gallery or a video of a life you lived — freely, including on monetized channels. A credit such as “1in8B · in8b.com” is appreciated. Card images are drawn on your device; when you create a share link, only that life's name, country and age reach our server.

Which site is official? How do I reach you?

The only official addresses are this site's own domain and the companion edition's separate domain. There is no app and no sign-up anywhere else. For questions, ideas or problems, write to [email protected].