I read an article about students using shared Google docs to chat in class and (to me) it sounded a lot like the experience of communicating with others connect

I read an article about students using shared Google docs to chat in class and (to me) it sounded a lot like the experience of communicating with others connected to the same remote host. I wonder if the Google Docs experience has an equivalent to the joy of discovering new systems and connecting to them and discovering new societies. I fondly remember some ephemeral connections made to the odd insomniac grad student or bored admin through those methods.