Credit: Getty
Relationships
Are video notes the best way to stay connected to your friends in 2025?
By Jess Bacon
30 days ago
4 min read
In the digital age, digesting our friends’ lives in bite-sized chunks has become easier than ever, but now this has moved into private chat, too. Move over voice notes; a new favourite is emerging: video notes.
With our increasingly busy lives, it’s no surprise that we’re all looking for ways to feel more connected to our friends. Weekends and evenings are filled with life admin, and the regular FaceTime and Zoom calls of the lockdown era are long behind us.
Sometimes, weeks and months can pass by in between catch-ups, as friends are scattered across the country and our schedules never seem to line up, leaving many of us feeling lonely, guilty about being a ‘bad friend’ and disconnected from the people we love.
Voice notes have become a popular way to bridge the distance between in-person meet-ups, and offer something more substantial than a text message in the form of a bite-sized audio update that can help keep pals in the loop.
In 2025, a new trend of exchanging short, recorded video messages is emerging. In a similar vein to Instagram, WhatsApp released a new video function last summer, which allows its users to film and send 60-second recordings.
For many, sharing our lives in digestible chunks is a more flexible and convenient way to catch up as it doesn’t require any pre-planning or for schedules to align. Simply record, ramble away and allow the person to respond in their own time.
Credit: Getty
Dating and relationships expert Sarah Louise Ryan says: “Sending video notes is such a wonderful way to stay connected with friends. When we send voice notes, what’s missing is seeing the warmth of our friend’s body language and forming a connection as we see them ‘face-to-face’.”
Áine Deane decided to make this a weekly habit and scheduled a ‘waffle’ on a Wednesday with her girls’ group chat, where every week they send a short video to update each other about what was happening.
Including updates about messy dates, mid-tear confessions, birthday celebrations and hungover revelations, Deane compiled snippets of over a year’s worth of entries from her group chat in a now-viral video on Instagram.
Filmed at work and on walks, holidays, lunch breaks and evenings, Deane offered a snapshot of the visual window they had given each other into their lives. She described it as the “best thing ever” and encouraged all friendship groups to give it a try.
Tian Howell, 30, a long-term voice note lover, also moved over to video notes with her friends about a year ago. Filmed in a similar way to an Instagram story, Howell said it felt like a “natural evolution” as her friends are scattered across multiple different time zones.
“Voice notes are more personal and feel like a little slice of real life,” she says. “We usually send video notes while we’re on the go. There’s something about seeing each other’s surroundings – whether it’s a beautiful view or just the weather – that makes the connection feel so much more real.”
A video note offers another layer to the interaction: you’re able to see eyes and facial expressions, which can trigger positive emotions and endorphins.
“This kind of connection can really benefit long-distance friendships or those who work long hours and don’t have the luxury of time to spend with their friends,” Ryan adds.
It also avoids delaying catching up due to time constraints and makes the process of staying in touch more efficient, without losing any of the value and depth that often can’t be conveyed in a text message. Howell says: “It’s nice to squeeze in little messages throughout the day rather than commit to a big catch-up call.
“For less important day-to-day moments, it’s nice to catch up with each other’s lives on video.”
Not only has it easier to stay in touch, but Howell has also felt more connected by sending video notes as it feels like her friends have been “right there, catching up in person”.
That doesn’t mean voice notes are off the table; they’re an easy option for multi-tasking in the evening. They’ve reserved voice notes for the podcast-length catch-ups, while FaceTime is predominantly for major life updates: engagements, buying a house or breakups. She explains: “We can do other things while we voice note and we don’t have to hold our arm up for 10 minutes.”
The idea of making video notes a weekly habit was started by an Australian creator who opened up about his ‘Wednesday waffle’ with his friends. It can help a habit to stick if it’s at the same time of the week.
However, Ryan suggests that spontaneous video notes might help keep the joy of exchanging videos alive and remove some of the guilt if you are too busy to send one on a specific day.
“I think scheduling video notes can add pressure and take away from the playfulness of it all,” she says, “but if someone feels better with a routine to check in on loved ones, then why not? It can only be a good thing. Keeping the joy in the process of video notes is key to keeping it going.”
Images: Getty
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