Why Wordle May Save Us All
And a little game shall lead them....
Well, I finally did it. I started playing Wordle. As a rule, I’m skeptical of bandwagon fads, so I held off. But I’m a language girl at heart, and a puzzle girl, too — I eventually HAD to try it, and now I’m hooked, along with millions of others around the world, all working to solve THE SAME PUZZLE, once each day.
Divided Time
Thanks to ever-improving technology — DVR, internet streaming, etc. — we no longer share a common television viewing experience. When we do watch the same trending show, it’s at different times, with much more risk for spoilers and an inability to discuss something in the moment without first ensuring that everyone is on the same page. Spoiling a series — or giving away today’s Wordle answer! — is right up there with today’s most egregious social faux pas, like typing in ALL CAPS or having twelve items in the “Ten Items or Less” lane. (Don’t tell me you don’t count….)
We have increasingly-divided online communities. Social media platforms allow for the curating of our activity — who we interact with most, how long we spend on a particular post — which then results in our seeing more of what we agree with and less of general content or ideas we don’t like or understand. While I don’t advocate getting into a debate on Facebook (no one EVER wins — just DON’T) and do appreciate seeing less of the vitriol to some degree, I do think that removing our ability to choose for ourselves which content we want to spend time on is not the answer. Maybe I wake up one day and have a genuine question about something that I’ve always considered unquestionable, and a controversial article on that topic happens to be included in my feed. Or maybe a comment by someone with whom I don’t interact much — meaning I should NEVER see posts from them, according to the current algorithm — makes me stop and think about something I’ve never considered. Let’s not rob ourselves of that opportunity.
No Escape
It used to be that whatever was going on in the world, we could choose to decompress — to forget for a while — by going to a movie or watching a favorite show on television. But the advent of social media and the 24-hour news cycle meant that it would now be possible (and desired by news anchors desperate to fill the dead space in their endless broadcasts) to hear a split-second reaction to current events from anyone, including celebrities who felt that it was their job to share their opinions about topics outside their chosen professions. This has allowed us to learn more about our on-screen heroes than perhaps we really wanted to know, which can then make it harder for us to lose ourselves in the fantasy world of movies and television. We need to be able to turn real life off sometimes.
Even sports — which used to be the great equalizer — is less unified than in the past. It used to be that we all understood that the players on the field represented the best the sport could find, that in order to make the team each person had measurably demonstrated the physical attributes — strength, speed, agility, etc. — necessary to rise to the top of the ranks. Therefore, we could all agree that we were gathered together as fans, side by side — with no concern for gender, creed, nationality, political party, etc. — to watch a contest between worthy opponents and to cheer for our chosen team. Happily and harmoniously. Without injecting politics into it. Because we need to turn it off sometimes.
What Unites Us?
All this is to suggest that we are losing our sense of TOGETHERNESS as Americans. Slowly but surely we are losing the tie that binds: our common national identity. When did America stop being our collective team? Regardless of our family culture, regardless of what state we live in or what our political opinions are, regardless of what we look like or who we love, we are Americans above all. But more and more, we are being asked — no, being TOLD — that we exist first and foremost as members of certain “communities” that we can check off as if they were accomplishments on a to-do list.
To me, it doesn’t matter which boxes you check, or how many of them you check; underneath it all, we are still part of the American family. The general rule of families is this: I can talk about my family, but you can’t. No matter how dysfunctional a family is or appears to be, just WATCH the wagons circle when one member is threatened. This applies to groups of all kinds: schools, towns, cast members in a play, companies, etc. Even if we see the weaknesses in our group, we feel compelled to stand up against outside criticism. We should make sure that we are still standing up for our country the way we would stand up for our family.
It is definitely getting more challenging to feel that familial bond in our disconnected 21st-century society.
But we have Wordle, so there is hope. I got it in four today….you?