Google Docs is US teens preferred chat app

With the wide spread use of technology in the classroom, Google Docs has become US teens preferred chat app. According to The Atlantic, students in middle and high schools are ditching the conventional paper notes in favour of Google Docs to communicate with one another.

While teachers are using Google Docs to do collaborative exercises and help students follow along with the lesson plan, the students are using it to organise running conversations behind teachers’ backs. Sometimes they’ll use the live-chat function or they’ll take advantage of the fact that Google allows users to highlight certain phrases or words, then comment on them via a pop-up box on the right side. They’ll clone a teacher’s shared Google document, then chat in the comments, so it appears to the casual viewer that they’re just making notes on the lesson plan. If a teacher approaches to take a closer look, they can click the Resolve button and the entire thread will disappear.

This approach is also used to fool parents. When everyone logs on to do homework at night, Google Docs chats come alive. Groups of kids will all collaborate on a document, while their parents believe they’re working on a school project.