The hottest chatting app for teens these days might surprise you: It’s Google Docs.
Instead of passing physical notes during class, today’s teens are instead sending messages back and forth using Google Docs, reports The Atlantic. Teens routinely use Google Docs in class to work on collaborative classroom exercises. Using Docs as a way to send notes allows teens to bypass blocked websites on their school’s network and pass digital notes without catching the attention of their teachers.
According to the report, teens use the service in situations in which they know they’ll need to put their phone away but also know their friends are likely to be on computers. Beyond using regular documents for communication, some teens said they also use Docs Live Chat feature, a feature many of their teachers reportedly don’t even know exists.
In order to get around teachers, students will also occasionally clone a document the class is working on and hold conversations in the comments, that way the document looks like classwork even though it’s being used as a chat tool. The same is often done by children at home who are trying to get around a parent’s social media ban.