My parents first started talking about the popular game wordle a few months ago and I ignored it. I wondered, what fun could there possibly be in trying to guess a random word?

I was so wrong. It’s easy to get drawn in because the rules are incredibly simple. Each day, you get six tries to type in your guess for the five-letter word. If you have any letters in the correct spot in the word, they’re marked green; if a letter is not in the correct spot, it’s marked yellow, and if it’s not in the word at all, it’s marked gray. The satisfaction of seeing those green and yellow tiles pop up on the screen as letters are flipped over is surprisingly intense. Knowing that you are inching closer and closer to finding the answer tugs at your brain, and once the tiles all pop up green, you are instantly flooded with relief and a feeling of accomplishment. Another day of successfully completing wordle!

Who would have thought that a basic word game could feel almost like an addiction? Turns out, the routine of playing this game one day after the other can become a compulsion that is tough to break. Almost forgetting to do the wordle of the day would send me into a panic, and if someone happened to carelessly spoil things for me by shouting the word aloud or flashing their screen, I would feel like my whole mood was ruined, frustrated that I did not have the chance to crack the code for myself.

The competitiveness that wordle brings out in people is another aspect of the game that started to annoy me. The first thing my friends and I would say to each other in the morning is “How many tries for wordle?” If I hadn’t played the game yet and knew that my friend had just gotten it in four tries, I would put even more effort into attempting to beat their score. I found myself craving that win, outdoing everyone else, and I started to wonder: Is a game really worth all this time, energy, focus, and even stress?

Maybe the answer isn’t quitting wordle forever. There are definitely positives that the game brings out—connecting with friends, learning new words, getting your brain going. But for now, I’m going to look at the habit of obsessing over a 5-letter word daily as a sign that it’s time to put the phone down and take a break.