The lazy but incredibly effective way to stay in touch with friends

Time to spam your friends with photos.

Here’s the problem with friendship these days: People say they have quality people in their corner, are even satisfied with the number of friends they have, and yearn to see them more often. Despite all this, Americans are actually spending less time socializing than ever before — a mere 35 minutes a day in 2025. When we do make plans, we schedule them weeks in advance. (Cue the I’m just so busy!) By the time the date finally rolls around, we might cancel, because we’re too stressed and want to veg out on the couch instead. In other words, we have very little follow through.

But we can close the gap between our wants and the constraints of reality by utilizing the resources we already have. Might I suggest the weekly photo dump? Every Friday in our group chat, my friends and I send a handful of photos from our weeks: pictures of dogs, of meals, of trails hiked, outfits worn, the stuff we wouldn’t necessarily share online. The photo dump is a peek behind the curtain, an intimate front-row seat to the small, slow moments that only your friends would appreciate.

Culture reflects society. Get our best explainers on everything from money to entertainment to what everyone is talking about online.

If you’re prone to laziness, as I admittedly am, the photo dump has perhaps the highest effort-to-payoff ratio. The weekly cadence establishes a routine, and texting is a relatively low-lift means of staying in touch.

Since texting outpaced phone calls in 2008, many of us have primarily used the written word, and the occasional photo, to........

© Vox