It’s a Monday morning, students don’t want to be at school, and everyone is sleepy. Evelyn keeps herself entertained with Wordle and Strands.
The games section started as just a crossword in the newspaper. Now, the New York Times games section includes Wordle, Connections, Crossword, Spelling Bee, and many more.
Josie Williams, a senior student, has quickly become addicted to the games. She started playing this year and tries to play every day.
“Class can be really boring. The games make me feel smart. It helps my logical thinking skills,” said Josie.
Some people, like college counselor Fred Alvarez, have been playing these games for what seems like forever.
“I have played [Wordle] 1373 times. I have a 99% winning percentage. My current streak is 27, but my max streak was 245,” said Mr. Alvarez.
Evelyn enjoys playing so she can share her statistics with her sister. She started playing over break and has quickly become addicted.
“It all started when my sister, one day, was like, Evelyn, play the Wordle with me, and then I played, and it was actually really fun. And then I started doing it every day,” said Evelyn.
Although the games seem to bring people together, there is one fatal flaw that deters people. The paywall. Some of these games are locked up in a jail that can only be opened with cash.
“Who’s gonna pay extra money each month for the New York Times? I’m not gonna pay $5 to go buy a newspaper on the side of the street when I can just go and do it online,” said Josie.
Others seem to disagree. The newspaper model was the only way to get information to the public for hundreds of years. News has only started being digitized in the last 20 years, bringing ruin to papers that can’t keep up.
“When you got a newspaper, it used to have all these games as part of it. It’s on its last leg. So I understand why, why they put lots of things behind a paywall,” said Mr. Alvarez.
A lot of what keeps people paying and playing is the streaks.
“In the summer, we go to a place where there’s no WiFi. There’s WiFi if you drive five miles. So I do find myself driving out just to try to preserve the streak, which is kind of silly,” said Mr. Alvarez.
These games might seem silly to others, but they are a good way to keep the brain occupied and learning. Whether it is guessing the newest 5-letter word in Wordle or finding the correct categories in Connections, such simple games bring people together.