>water-cooler social stuff.

I keep hearing this while at the same time seeing very little evidence for this.

Most 'water cooler social stuff' is absolutely pointless small talk at best that you have to often engage in to remain polite. I'd rather not if I could avoid it except for certain circumstances with people I am already 'friends' with.

Guess what I do with those coworkers I am friends with? we have a separate channel/group from official channels where we do that already. Nothing's missing there.