Whether you think the puzzle is a colossal waste of time or a great way to train your brain, author AJ Jacobs says there is no doubt about the unifying nature of breaking a head scraper.
“This drive to solve problems comes from deep within us, and we have so much joy in fighting and solving problems. And the puzzles almost present a platonic ideal of this experience,” Jacobs told The Sunday Magazine presenter Piya Chattopadhyay.
Jacobs is the author of the new book, The Puzzle: A Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Confusing Puzzles of All Time, from Crosswords to Puzzles to the Meaning of Life. He says some people have misconceptions about puzzles, believing them to be trivial research. But he argues that if you stop and look closer, puzzles can go far beyond cubes, words, and numbers.
Jacobs is the author of The Puzzler: One Man’s Quest to Solve the Most Confusing Puzzles Ever, from crossword puzzles to puzzles to the meaning of life. (Lem Lattimer)
“I think even if you hate one particular type of puzzle, I’m not a big fan of sudoku, for example, there will always be a puzzle for you and there will be the puzzle of life,” Jacobs said.
“So I approach life as a puzzle. And I think it has definitely made my life better, happier and less stressful.”
Puzzle unit
Jacobs believes that puzzles bring together more than just puzzle pieces.
“My Twitter channel is usually full of vitriol and uninformed opinions, but when Wordle’s madness came, it was filled with these beautiful yellow and green squares, so puzzles can be a unifying force,” he said. to say.
Wordle, a puzzle app that requires people to guess a five-letter word once a day, was launched in October 2021 and then rose in popularity. In January, the New York Times he bought it from former Reddit software engineer Josh Wardle.
As part of his research, Jacobs reviewed a study in the book Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter by Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie, which looked at how groups can work together.
“They grabbed Liberals and Conservatives and tried to figure out,‘ How can you bring them together? ’” He said. “And one of the only ways was for them to work together on a puzzle.”
In the popular Wordle game, the correct letters in the daily puzzle are green, the incorrect letters are gray, and the letters in the word, but in the wrong order, are shown as yellow. (powerlanguage.co.uk/wordle)
Puzzles also helped Jacobs’ parents keep in touch in 1964, when his father was assigned to Korea as an army lawyer and his mother was still in the United States.
The couple mailed a single crossword puzzle back and forth, each filling in one word at a time and taking a few months to crossword puzzle.
“[It was] I think it’s the least efficient way to ever do a puzzle, but it’s definitely romantic, “Jacobs said.
But not everyone agrees that puzzles are a definite connecting force.
Stacy Costa says that while puzzles bring people together, they can also cause some fights. Costa is a so-called enigmatologist, who is someone who studies puzzles and works at the University of Toronto.
Stacy Costa, a University of Toronto puzzle expert, says puzzles can help improve your mind, but you have to challenge yourself. (Erin Collins / CBC)
“If people are in the same genre of puzzle, 100 percent, they find qualities to connect with,” Costa said.
“Where division comes into play is when people like different types of puzzles … some are more math-focused or more logic-focused, and some are more word-based.”
“The mentality of the puzzle”
Like Jacobs, Costa believes that there is a puzzle for everyone, and if you think you are not a puzzle person, you may just have to try something different.
In addition to being entertaining, Costa believes that doing puzzles has benefits, such as helping your brain find new ways to solve other types of problems. But to get these benefits, you have to deal with puzzles that challenge you, rather than choosing something that you can quickly figure out.
“If you commit to a puzzle that’s a little harder … then your mind will get stronger,” he said. “I think that’s the key: finding the level of difficulty for each person.”
Depending on the puzzle, it can also reconnect the brain as it uses new avenues to address difficult issues, which can help with critical thinking, he said.
But neuroscientist Daniel Levitin has challenged the idea that making puzzles improves neuroplasticity, the technical term for reconnecting the brain.
“There is no evidence that these brain training games make you smarter or improve your memory or prevent Alzheimer’s,” he said in an interview with CBC in 2020.
“If you do Sudoku puzzles or crosswords, all that improves you are Sudoku puzzles and crosswords.”
Instead, we are learning a new skill that prevents cognitive decline, said the author of Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives. So for people who have never done a jigsaw puzzle, challenging yourself with something unknown can improve your brain health, Levitin said.
“This fattens the neural circuits; it creates new synaptic connections and the exercise of the brain that leaves the comfort zone is very important for successful aging.”
Jacobs’ parents used a crossword puzzle to keep in touch even when they were in other parts of the world. (Karen Bleier / AFP / Getty Images)
For Jacobs, he said he has seen clear evidence that the benefits extend beyond pencil and paper. While researching his book, he explored all sides of the Rubik’s Cube which is the world of puzzles. He visited an unresolved puzzle at CIA headquarters, attended a global puzzle contest in Spain, and saw people from all over the world united in their love of puzzles.
“They encourage curiosity. They encourage what I call the mindset of the puzzle, which is one of curiosity about everything: about life, family, politics, whatever,” Jacobs said.
He plans to apply this puzzle mentality to every aspect of his life.
“There’s a motto used in the puzzle community: don’t get angry, put curiosity,” he said. “For example, if I’m talking to someone on the other side of the political spectrum, this is a puzzle … So instead of getting angry and debating them and trying to win a war of words, I say : “Let’s think about it. together, why don’t we agree? ‘”
Written by Philip Drost. Produced by Sarah-Joyce Battersby.