Hearing on Spoiler Avoidance
A daily puzzle player clears their feeds before playing and the morning reorganizes around that window.
TESTIMONY SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
The subject logs off social media before playing a daily word game. This is not unusual. The subject does not consider it unusual. The subject would describe this as a minor precaution taken out of preference for an uncontaminated experience.
The precaution has been in place for eleven weeks.
Someone avoids social feeds until finishing a daily puzzle because even a hint feels like contamination. This is the observation at issue. The game takes approximately four minutes. The social media blackout preceding it has expanded, in increments too small to register, to approximately forty minutes.
The morning now begins with the blackout.
The game is called casual while missing it feels like a small failure. This contradiction was noted early in proceedings and was not disputed by any party. The subject agreed that missing a day produced something adjacent to disappointment. The subject disagreed that this constituted an obligation. The hearing did not require resolution of this disagreement.
Under the governing rule, spoiler avoidance becomes procedure once repetition feels safer than reconsidering it. The subject cannot identify the date on which the precaution became a routine. This is consistent with findings from comparable cases: the transition from precaution to procedure leaves no documentation.
Spoiler avoidance occupies one protected pocket of the day. Other routines have migrated. The subject does not check messages before completing the game. The subject delays coffee, in some instances, to avoid reading the screen while the kettle runs. These are adjustments.
Other routines start moving around that pocket.
The hearing received no evidence that the subject intends to discontinue spoiler avoidance. The subject noted that the streak is currently active and that discontinuing would require reconsidering whether the streak mattered, which is a separate and more complicated question.
Spoiler avoidance turns casual play into a protected appointment nobody officially scheduled.
A tiny game becomes a daily obligation. Submitted findings are consistent with this outcome. The morning has adapted. The hearing is adjourned.