A woman works on a physical crossword puzzle. The Globe and Mail ran its first crossword puzzle on Nov. 16, 1936Charles Rex Arbogast/The Canadian Press
If you are familiar with Rita Ora, even if you’ve never heard her music; if Edam is a type of cheese that rolls off your tongue, even if you’re lactose intolerant; if you, staying with that theme, know that “oleo” is a non-dairy spread – even if you’re not exactly sure what it is (margarine?), we may, egad, be walking down (or across) a similar path. Crossword puzzles.
I have a day-long system – I know this sounds pathetic – that begins with Wordle and, since The Globe and Mail introduced its online crossword in February, ends with that. I do not allow myself to do the Wordle in bed; it is my reward, along with coffee, for arising. Sometimes I wonder if the Wordle-master is sending messages through the puzzle (case in point: “queer” on Wednesday – a Pride month shout-out?) I eschew most new word games because, ahem, who has the time, but made an exception for Connections, whose groupings can border on the ludicrous (from Tuesday: “things with Mantles/Mantels: Earth, emperor, fireplace, Yankees). Doh!
When did I realize this was perhaps becoming a problem? Was it the hours of puzzle-solving when I could have been doing something productive – reading, exercising, learning about emus? No, it was not. It was when, after falling down my stairs (no, I was not doing a puzzle at the time), my doctor ordered me off screens for 10 days.
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Suddenly, I had a lot of time on my hands. It wasn’t just the not-working. It was the not-puzzling on my phone. (Confession: I still did the Wordle.)
Was I addicted? My concern was generally laughed off. Anyway, as addictions go, it’s a good one to have. (I am not playing down the gravity of true addiction.)
As Jon Stewart says in the crossword puzzle documentary Wordplay, “It’s not like insulin. I can live without it for a day.”
On a Reddit post from a few years ago, some poor puzzler wrote about cancelling their New York Times subscription because the endless archive on their phone was too tempting. “I would keep playing until my fingers ached.”
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The moral panic around crosswords is as old as the puzzles themselves. As Natan Last lays out in Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle, the phenomenon in its early days 100 years ago was greeted with upturned noses and even alarm, including by, ironically, the Times, which, in 1924, called it “sinful waste.”
The Globe ran its first crossword puzzle on Nov. 16, 1936 (six years before the Times), on the same page as comics and lighter headlines such as “Weird animals said roaming in Canada.” (The story was about an archival book; the weird animals were buffalo.) A note to the reader explained “the answer to each puzzle will appear henceforth on the next publishing day after the puzzle appears.”
The internet of course had a huge effect on puzzles, as the world’s best known crossword puzzle figure Will Shortz told The Globe in 2015. “Nowadays you have the entire world at your fingertips through the internet, and that makes both constructions better and clues more interesting,” said the Times’ crossword puzzle editor.
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Smartphones and apps have had a massive effect. As did COVID-19. In his book, Mr. Last demonstrates how the pandemic was fertile ground for puzzling.
The pursuit of streaks is a big part of this. But it’s more than that, as the Reddit user with the tired fingers well knew. “The puzzle solving is a self-cure for the chaos of the world, a square into which one can organize and manage reality’s infomania,” Mr. Last opined in an e-mail to me this week.
I asked him whether the development of the digital crossword puzzle has increased the potential for addictive behaviour. “I think having a crossword or games app whose habituation cross-subsidizes your newsroom and is designed by UX specialists trained in the dark arts of casino-esque allure is inevitably going to increase the potential for addictive behavior,” he replied. But for him, he emphasized, it’s a pleasurable pursuit.
“It’s not like drugs, it’s not like crack, but it is an addiction,” said Mr. Shortz, in a 2012 video, How a Crossword is Made. “It’s a helpful addiction because it’s going to make your brain bigger and it’s going to make you more capable of tackling life.”
There is a lot of life to tackle. Or, on some days, simply eke out. The world is on fire. Do a crossword – or 10. Read a romantasy, binge a series, eat an Oreo, visit Oslo. Take a break, find some momentary pleasure. And have a great summer. Adieu.