Wordle isn’t going away anytime soon.
The daily online word game, now owned by the New York Times, has surged in popularity since CivicScience first checked in back in January. In May polling, one-third of U.S. adults had either tried the game or intended to try it, up from 17% four months ago. And only 3 in 10 Americans now say they’ve never heard of it.
In January, we found that the typical Wordle player was a young woman. Now, it seems that the user base has become more evenly split between the sexes – though two-thirds of intenders are still female.
Wordle’s age breakdown is pretty unique: Young people (under 35) are the most likely to play, but many of them didn’t like the game. Meanwhile, middle-aged adults (35-54) were the most likely to intend to play Wordle, while very few older Americans (55+) said they didn’t like the game once they tried it.
The New York Times has said that Wordle has driven “tens of millions” of new users to its site, with many moving beyond the free, once-a-day Wordle puzzle to sign up for the NYT’s $40-per-year Games subscription.
It’s possible the NYT could leverage these players to become full newspaper subscribers as well. Even among the younger age bracket alone (18-34), Wordle players and intenders are far more likely to subscribe to a print newspaper than non-players of that age group.
Lastly, while sharing daily Wordle results on Twitter has reportedly declined in recent weeks, CivicScience data show that only 4 in 10 Wordle players and intenders don’t use Twitter at least occasionally.
With only 29% of the U.S. population still unaware of Wordle and 39% not interested, it’s quite possible that the fad has already hit its peak, or at the very least will do so soon. But there’s no question that the game has found itself a strong – and perhaps lasting – foothold in the broader internet culture.
