Pinned
Hey everyone, my wife @EmmaleeShall made a coloring book devotional. It's pretty amazing! You should check it out.
Matthew Shallenberger
19.4K posts
Matthew Shallenberger
@mjshally
Disciple of Jesus, husband of @emmaleeshall, father, musician, writer, St. Louis Cardinals fan. Tweets are my own.
Joined October 2014
- This whole "the NYT ruined Wordle!" thing is a great case study in confirmation bias. It also gives us some insight into human nature that helps explain how conspiracy theories work.
- Replying to @mjshallySo why are so many people convinced that the NYT has ruined Wordle? Because of confirmation bias. They were already mad at the NYT. Then they struggled with a puzzle or two. It's easy to connect the dots and blame the NYT for making the game harder.
- Replying to @mjshallyA few conclusions: 1) What feels true is not always what's actually true. 2) We tend to give too much weight to recent experience, which can lead us to wrong conclusions. 3) Recognizing and accounting for our preconceived biases is essential to the process of finding truth.
- Replying to @mjshallyExcept... they haven't. They have not added any new words to the list, but they have removed a few that they thought were too challenging. So... they've actually made Wordle easier. (Example: they changed the word "agora" to "aroma.")
- Replying to @mjshallyBut here's the really interesting part: even when you show these people the evidence that Wordle isn't actually harder, some of them don't believe it. Why? Because it doesn't feel true. Their feelings about Wordle are so strong that even factual evidence can't overcome them.
- Replying to @mjshallyAnd that's how conspiracy theories work. They play on both our feelings and our preconceived biases. That combination is powerful, and it's why conspiracy theories are so resistant to debunking. It doesn't matter how much evidence you supply to disprove the theory.
- Replying to @mjshallyThat's human nature. Most of us have a tendency to go with what feels true, even it if isn't always what's actually true. We trust our gut more than we trust other people's so-called "facts," especially when our feelings are based on our perceived experience.
- Replying to @mjshallyMaybe the recent puzzles really have been harder for them to solve. Or maybe they just forgot how much they struggled with previous puzzles. (Anyone remember "knoll"?) Either way, their bias against the NYT is confirmed by their feeling that Wordle has gotten harder.
- Replying to @mjshallyWhen the NYT announced that they had bought Wordle from its creator, Josh Wardle, many people reacted with anger because, for various reasons, they had a preexisting dislike for the NYT.
- Replying to @mjshallyWell this thread is going farther than I thought it would, so I might as well make even more people mad: The Wordle/NYT controversy shows that liberals are not immune to the conspiracy theory impulse. It's not just conservatives. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
- Replying to @mjshally4) We might have a legitimate reason to dislike someone/something, but that doesn't mean every negative assumption we make about them is true. In other words, maybe you have a good reason to hate the NYT. But that does not prove that they are making Wordle harder.
- Replying to @mjshallyFast forward a couple weeks. The NYT officially transferred Wordle onto their games website. Suddenly people started complaining that the puzzles were getting harder. Some of them failed to solve a puzzle, while others just struggled more than usual to find the right answer.
- Replying to @mjshallyMost of the early complaints I saw revolved around the fear that the NYT would start charging a subscription fee to play Wordle, which was free to play. Mr. Wardle had said he had no plans to monetize it, but with the NYT acquiring it that could change.
