Over the past couple of weeks, the online post of the New York Times has been getting a lot of attention for its daily Wordle. Wordle gives players six tries to guess a five-letter word. Users start off with a random word, and the website will change the letters to gray, yellow, or green squares. Gray squares mean that that letter is not in the word, yellow means that it is in the word but not in the place that it was in that word, and green means it is the right letter in the right place.

All over social media platforms like TikTok and Snap Chat, people of all ages have been posting squares that mimic their word guesses and tell others how many tries it took them to get the right word. Like traditional newspapers with crossword puzzles and other word games, this daily game gets the gears spinning in people’s brains to start off the day, as the Wordles are posted in the morning.

Wordle, and other word games, have been proven to help boost both cognitive health and overall mood in users. They can expand your language and vocabulary, and when a player gets a word correct, they are given a boost of happiness at their achievement. If playing once a day isn’t enough, Wordle itself is an app- the New York Times simply just decided to add it to their online publication.