Students banding together against the ban — in the most millennial way possible.
Displeased Gen Zs are keeping the lines of communication open amid new cell phone bans in schools, chatting with one another via Google Docs on their laptops as a substitute for text messaging.
“A bunch of high school kids are creating a Google Doc with their friends, they all have real-time access to it, and they just type into it during class time,” Valerie Elizabeth Dickinson, a teacher and content creator, revealed in a trending TikTok.
“So, they’ve basically reinvented the AOL chat room,” she laughed, likening the youngsters’ old-school stunt to the Y2K-era platform, which allowed dial-up internet users to virtually engage in group text conversations on their computers.
And folks over age 30 — many of whom survived most of middle school and high school without cell phones during the early aughts — are getting a kick out of Gen Z’s throwback hack.
“Wait until they rediscover passing notes,” teased a commenter.
“This brings me back to 2001,” cheered an impressed onlooker.
“Chat rooms are back!,” another exclaimed with glee.
Shared digital forums were one of the first forms of social media. And now, social media-obsessed tweens and teens are giving it new life.
The Google Docs texting trend comes just weeks after at least 18 states established bell-to-bell bans on cell phones for the 2025-2026 academic year.
Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York’s children are better off not having their devices during the school day, arguing, “They’re not learning. They’re not engaging with other students. You walk into a hallway [in] a school that allows cell phones — the halls are silent.”
The smartphone ban across the Empire State took effect on Sept. 4.
Shockingly, it’s been warmly received by both teachers and students, including Upper West Side middle schooler Maximilian “Max” Davidge, 12, who previously told The Post, “I actually like the idea because if everyone is on their phone when the teacher is teaching, then no one will learn anything in school.”
Still, kids who’d prefer cyber-yapping over reading, writing and arithmetic are relying on Google Docs to get their gabbing done.
“[Your] cell phone rule was never going to stop me from texting my [best friend],” a tech-savvy teen wrote in the caption of a TikTok vid, featuring the Google Doc thread she shares with a pal.
“Can’t ever silence us, queens,” wrote a separate, but equally rebellious, teenybopper in another Google Docs praise post, captioning the clip, “F that phone ban.”
