Catholic Review What a wonderful Wordle

There are three types of people in the world:

People who can’t wait to play the next Wordle.
People who are annoyed by all their friends’ Wordle scores clogging up their social media feeds.
People who are saying, “What’s Wordle?” (Some of those might be in Group #2 too.)

I’m in Group #1. I’m not great at Wordle. I’m not even good at it. But I am a sucker for fun word games. I love being challenged. I don’t mind failure—especially with words, which are not just my bread and butter, but also my candy and ice cream.

If you don’t know about Wordle, you’re not alone, but you’re in a group that is shrinking every day. Fortune magazine published a story reporting on a recent survey that says as many as 14% of Americans are playing Wordle. That’s a decent percentage.

What do 14% of Americans do every day? Lose the remote in their living room? Probably. Brush their teeth? I hope so. Floss? Ummmm, maybe?

But playing Wordle? Absolutely! Because Wordle is pure fun.

First of all, it’s not an app. It’s a website. That adds to the charm.

You go every day to find a new game—and there’s just one a day. This is appealing to those of us who have been pulled into games before. Is it an addiction if you spend just a few minutes a day on one challenge? Clearly, the answer is no.

Best of all? We are all trying to solve the same challenge every day. So, when people share their results, it’s not boasting—especially when I lose or take 5 or 6 steps to solve it. It’s to show how we arrived at our guess. What was the path we took to get to the answer?

By this point in the pandemic, I’m sure everyone’s sourdough starter has 30 descendants. The spice racks are alphabetized, and the sock drawers are sorted. People are crocheting Easter baskets for the third year in a row.

Me? I’ll be over here playing Wordle, inserting five-letter words, and seeing which letters stick. And I’ll be happy as can be. Happy. Hmm. Would that be a good first guess for Wordle tomorrow? Maybe. Ooooh, maybe!

Looking forward to tomorrow.