Here’s the tweet thread from when I launched this project in the first year of COVID, explaining the original intent: namely, contact tracing and deliberate planning of hangouts when they got harder to do. And I never stopped tracking—the data is current through today!

It seems like a new article about the loneliness epidemic pops up virtually every month in mainstream publications. I’ve been amused to see when friend tracking specifically gets vindicated. Here’s just one example, from The New York Times Style Magazine, January 29, 2026: “Some even like to keep a log of their latest interactions with friends, to make sure too much time doesn’t elapse between catchups.”1

Note that this interactive chart is best viewed on a desktop computer because of the combination of tooltips and line selection.

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  1. Laura Regensdorf, “How to Make Friends as an Adult.” The New York Times Style Magazine, January 29, 2026. https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-make-friends-as-an-adult.html ↩︎