11 ms·

The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"

51 points by ingve 2y ago

Sakos 2y ago
The whole purpose of Duolingo is emotional and psychological manipulation to get us to override our tendencies to procrastinate, forget, etc. Otherwise we'd just pick up a foreign language book. I don't really get the framing of this article.
- bubblyworld 2y ago
  Yeah, I was about to say the same - this is exactly why my partner uses it, for instance. Whether it's the most efficient or healthy method is another question entirely (I suspect not, personally, but I'm also not a fan of telling people how to live their life).
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    I had no idea Doulingo was a Tiger parent.
- watwut 2y ago
  You cant learn foreign language from a book. Or, very very few people ever succeeded to learn basics of reading and write in foreign language from a book. And you can not possibly learn listening and talking.
  - Majestic121 2y ago
    You can't learn a foreign language from Duolingo alone either, so the original sentence stands.
    - watwut 2y ago
      Original sentence is still nonsense. No, if duolingo stopped with those messages, people would still not picked book as replacement. And book as your only resource have massive drop put rates. People generally give up very soon.
      - Sakos 2y ago
        It feels to me like we're in agreement, so I'm not certain why you're saying my original sentence is nonsense. > people would still not picked book as replacement Yes, exactly. > And book as your only resource have massive drop put rates. People generally give up very soon. Yes, entirely correct. That's what something like Duolingo promises to solve and these obstacles (independent of Duolingo) are why people won't pick up a book or do other forms of self-learning instead. They want a service like Duolingo, because it promises to make learning more approachable and accessible and provides mental tricks to keep you engaged regularly and long-term. Which brings me around to my original argument: The article is framing it in this weirdly malicious way as if it isn't exactly what people wanted from a service like Duolingo. It's like turning a water boiler on and then getting upset that the water is hot. I thought that was the point?
        watwut 2y ago
        In that case I misunderstood your original sentence. I knee jerked, projecting something that was not present in your writing into it. So I apologize. For whatever it is worth, I know you did not wrote it, the "pick a textbook for language learning" meme is sort of my pet peeve. I kinda suspect that people saying it never learned foreign language.
        Sakos 2y ago
        That's okay, I'm glad we could clear it up. I won't pretend that I have any idea how one would best learn a language and I don't know if Duolingo is effective at all. I just understand why people want services like it.
  - carstenhag 2y ago
    Why can't you? As someone else already said, it's a combination. I'm learning french and I'm enjoying A1/A2-specific books and newspapers (Zeit Sprachen, idk if something like this exists in other countries)
    - watwut 2y ago
      Because it does not have sounds, simple as that.
      - carstenhag 2y ago
        But at some point you understand the usual pronunciations. Even if you make mistakes at 5% of the words, learning more vocabulary by reading is probably a positive overall
- deafpolygon 2y ago
  It's emotional and psychological manipulation to get you to pay for their subscription... nothing else.
  - arghwhat 2y ago
    Not really. Psychological manipulation to increase your engagement in something you want to do and is paying for the privilege of doing is in your interest. Signing up for a physical class and have the scheduled class drive you to attend even if you weren't really in the mood at that time is also psychological manipulation. It's only negative once it stops being productive, because Duolingo has limitations.
- thaumasiotes 2y ago
  > Otherwise we'd just pick up a foreign language book. The problem with this approach is that it takes several hours to get through a couple of sentences. All of the effort is frontloaded; if you stick with it, your pace will rapidly improve. But starting is a challenge.
- RHSeeger 2y ago
  That's more or less what I was thinking. I want something to help me learn a language. Using gamification and reminders is a way to accomplish that. I don't see where it's doing anything wrong.
mikeodds 2y ago
I realised the gamification had missed its purpose when I caught myself memorising the bigrams and trigrams of answers without reading the full text so I could click through and retain my streak each day. My learning had stalled at this point but my streak looked great.
- aswerty 2y ago
  I do this myself. But is the memorization not a feature as opposed to a bug? Essentially embedding certain sentences/phrases in your brain to the point where you already know what you need to type/say without having to fully engage with the prompt.
  - ryukoposting 2y ago
    I was thinking the same thing. I don't process English one word at a time. I consider it a sign of progress that I don't process certain bits and pieces of German one word at a time.
- arghwhat 2y ago
  It does have its issues, in particular for those relatively good at games to begin with... There's quite a big difference between their language classes though, but I do prefer alternative apps that target a specific language with laser focus. They tend to have better organic content for the purpose of practice. You also need to realize that you will only truly be good at the language if you get to practice using it with other speakers. Something needs to click in your head in the right way.
  - troyvit 2y ago
    What apps would you recommend?
    - arghwhat 2y ago
      Depends on your language of choice. For Mandarin, I like Hello Chinese better than Duolingo. It still has a gamification aspect, but the content is much more varied and includes things like practicing reading comprehension and mock conversations, not to mention stroke order practice. I would expect something similar to exist for other popular languages - I know that is the case for Japanese at least.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aswerty 2y ago
If the features of Duolingo are available in another app (i.e. their various memorization techniques, vocabulary building, various interactive learning, etc.) that doesn't gamify or nag. Let me know since I really detest these aspects of Duolingo. I succumbed to paying for the app since it is virtually unusable with the frequency of ads on the freemium model. They are a very dislikable brand.
- BlanketLogic 2y ago
  FWIW, I found Busuu great. After a year on busuu and 1000 days on duolingo, I find the former way better for language acquisition.
  - aswerty 2y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation. But just checking it out there,it seems to also follow a gamification model that forces you to click "commitment" buttons like you are some kind of child.
- ryukoposting 2y ago
  I like Duolingo for the exact reasons you don't. I want to learn a language, and I will need to know the basics to be able to talk to people on my honeymoon next year. What you see as "nagging" I see as "holding me accountable to a goal I've set for myself." I can definitely see why you'd want to be able to dial back the notifications, though. On principle, I'd usually be on your side in this kind of situation. But again, for me, in this particular case, the nagging is a feature, not a nuisance. Besides, of all the things an app can nag you about, learning a language is pretty innocuous. Fun fact: if you have a pi-hole, the only ad you'll ever get is their own ad promoting Super Duolingo. I'm assuming it's a video embedded in the app somewhere.
  - gwervc 2y ago
    > I want to learn a language Then why are you using Duolingo in the first place? That app has to be the worst method, because people think they are progressing while they in fact don't. From personal experience it's the worst method I tired to learn a language, and the content present for languages I know isn't good either.
iamsaitam 2y ago
"Younger age groups engaging with marketing are looking for a company that has a special, unique personality that's memorable and feels authentic," Let me introduce "Fuck you, Inc.", if you're not into us then fuck you.
- teetertater 2y ago
  You're probably joking but I'm sure this would make a killing
marban 2y ago
A decade ago, this was known as growth hacking, and everyone aspired to master it.
djeastm 2y ago
I'm a former military linguist who was trained to learn Arabic. I've always disliked and distrusted Duolingo (and before that, Rosetta Stone), for providing people the basics (which they do just fine) but making it seem like fluency is always just one more upgrade or lesson around the corner while not-so-subtly implying that it's your fault that you're not there yet. Even for the most talented learners of languages it takes many, many more hours and types of exposure that these apps cannot achieve. For Arabic, for instance, the military gave us 88 weeks of full-day instruction with native speakers, in addition to homework. And that's all just to achieve basic reading/listening fluency. And many of the people who start the program (and have passed an aptitude test even to start the program) do not complete it. Like I said, it's as good as anything to start, but it's the marketing of it as the complete package that irks me.
- barrell 2y ago
  > while not-so-subtly implying that it's your fault that you're not there yet It's disappointing to me how many people try learning a language with Duolingo, do not succeed, then just "accept" that they're "bad with languages" and "can't learn them".
  - jghn 2y ago
    I use Duo every day, but understand and accept its limitations. It's free, it fits into my schedule, and I do move forward albeit slowly. After about 2 years with my language I'm able to read at around an A2/B1 level. Listening is hit or miss in the A1/A2 level. It depends a lot on the speaker. But I can't speak at all, clearly my brain hasn't rewired itself to think on the fly like that. But that's fine. For me.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- landosaari 2y ago
  [dead]
- 2y ago
sebstefan 2y ago
I must be in the right demographic because I find their violent blackmailing owl shenanigans really funny for a marketting angle. I like it.
WesolyKubeczek 2y ago
I don't know. I'm either too old, or too jaded, or don't give a fuck too much. It was nagging me, and I just ignored it. It's bad, of course, that I have ignored it, because as a result, learning hasn't happened. But it was very easy for me to ignore it. I didn't feel blackmailed. And then I keep wondering what all those years of nagging telemarketing calls one has learned to hang up on despite all the tricks can do to one's psyche.
rckt 2y ago
What I really don't like about Duolingo is how they try to progressively increase your load. Whether it's the monthly achievement or friends' quest, if you try to go faster, then you'll have to go through much more in order to finish those. I experimented with this a bit and found out that to keep the app out of the aggressive mode I just need to do the bare minimum, like 1 lesson per day. And having a sub does not help here. So I just canceled it and doing 1-2 lessons per day to stay in a chill mode.
- laverya 2y ago
  To be fair, that's actually one of the things that I've liked about it. Pushing me to study more on a week-by-week basis is at least theoretically valuable, no?
  - rckt 2y ago
    Working full-time and having a family does not always leave much time for other activities.
cornedor 2y ago
The icon only changes on April fools as a joke or something like that. And it changes for everybody. At least on iPhone, I don't think you can change the app icon without notifying the user.
- watwut 2y ago
  There is widget with owl that gets sadder and sadder as the day progresses if you did not done duolingo.
- Izkata 2y ago
  Last year in October they changed it to a melting version of the owl to get users' attention: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/why-is-duolingo-melting-app-icon-explained/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/why-is-duolingo-melting...
jamager 2y ago
The many ways in which Duolingo is unethical and abusive derive from the simple fact that if it actually worked, even the slightest, then you would stop using the thing and cashing them $$$ For me the worst is that when you indulge, you feel bad and will do something; but with Duolingo you are still indulging the same, however it makes you feel accomplished and that you made your work. No, you didn't — You just watched the ads they wanted you to watch. Doing nothing is literally better than Duolingo.
Daviey 2y ago
I had a pretty good streak, but due to hospitalised sickness I lost it by a few hours. Couldn't face picking the app back up and starting again from a zero streak.
Somersal 2y ago
My problem with Duolingo, as an English person, is the ‘English’ is actually American English (even uses a US flag!) and sometimes marks my answers as wrong when they are actually correct in English! Some of the required responses aren’t even English (e.g. “the books had gotten lost”). I would really appreciate it if they could allow actual English answers as well as American English ones.

51 points by ingve 2y ago

The whole purpose of Duolingo is emotional and psychological manipulation to get us to override our tendencies to procrastinate, forget, etc. Otherwise we'd just pick up a foreign language book. I don't really get the framing of this article.

bubblyworld 2y ago
Yeah, I was about to say the same - this is exactly why my partner uses it, for instance. Whether it's the most efficient or healthy method is another question entirely (I suspect not, personally, but I'm also not a fan of telling people how to live their life).
- datavirtue 2y ago
  I had no idea Doulingo was a Tiger parent.
watwut 2y ago
You cant learn foreign language from a book. Or, very very few people ever succeeded to learn basics of reading and write in foreign language from a book. And you can not possibly learn listening and talking.
- Majestic121 2y ago
  You can't learn a foreign language from Duolingo alone either, so the original sentence stands.
  - watwut 2y ago
    Original sentence is still nonsense. No, if duolingo stopped with those messages, people would still not picked book as replacement. And book as your only resource have massive drop put rates. People generally give up very soon.
    - Sakos 2y ago
      It feels to me like we're in agreement, so I'm not certain why you're saying my original sentence is nonsense. > people would still not picked book as replacement Yes, exactly. > And book as your only resource have massive drop put rates. People generally give up very soon. Yes, entirely correct. That's what something like Duolingo promises to solve and these obstacles (independent of Duolingo) are why people won't pick up a book or do other forms of self-learning instead. They want a service like Duolingo, because it promises to make learning more approachable and accessible and provides mental tricks to keep you engaged regularly and long-term. Which brings me around to my original argument: The article is framing it in this weirdly malicious way as if it isn't exactly what people wanted from a service like Duolingo. It's like turning a water boiler on and then getting upset that the water is hot. I thought that was the point?
      - watwut 2y ago
        In that case I misunderstood your original sentence. I knee jerked, projecting something that was not present in your writing into it. So I apologize. For whatever it is worth, I know you did not wrote it, the "pick a textbook for language learning" meme is sort of my pet peeve. I kinda suspect that people saying it never learned foreign language.
        Sakos 2y ago
        That's okay, I'm glad we could clear it up. I won't pretend that I have any idea how one would best learn a language and I don't know if Duolingo is effective at all. I just understand why people want services like it.
- carstenhag 2y ago
  Why can't you? As someone else already said, it's a combination. I'm learning french and I'm enjoying A1/A2-specific books and newspapers (Zeit Sprachen, idk if something like this exists in other countries)
  - watwut 2y ago
    Because it does not have sounds, simple as that.
    - carstenhag 2y ago
      But at some point you understand the usual pronunciations. Even if you make mistakes at 5% of the words, learning more vocabulary by reading is probably a positive overall
deafpolygon 2y ago
It's emotional and psychological manipulation to get you to pay for their subscription... nothing else.
- arghwhat 2y ago
  Not really. Psychological manipulation to increase your engagement in something you want to do and is paying for the privilege of doing is in your interest. Signing up for a physical class and have the scheduled class drive you to attend even if you weren't really in the mood at that time is also psychological manipulation. It's only negative once it stops being productive, because Duolingo has limitations.
thaumasiotes 2y ago
> Otherwise we'd just pick up a foreign language book. The problem with this approach is that it takes several hours to get through a couple of sentences. All of the effort is frontloaded; if you stick with it, your pace will rapidly improve. But starting is a challenge.
RHSeeger 2y ago
That's more or less what I was thinking. I want something to help me learn a language. Using gamification and reminders is a way to accomplish that. I don't see where it's doing anything wrong.

mikeodds 2y ago

I realised the gamification had missed its purpose when I caught myself memorising the bigrams and trigrams of answers without reading the full text so I could click through and retain my streak each day. My learning had stalled at this point but my streak looked great.

aswerty 2y ago
I do this myself. But is the memorization not a feature as opposed to a bug? Essentially embedding certain sentences/phrases in your brain to the point where you already know what you need to type/say without having to fully engage with the prompt.
- ryukoposting 2y ago
  I was thinking the same thing. I don't process English one word at a time. I consider it a sign of progress that I don't process certain bits and pieces of German one word at a time.
arghwhat 2y ago
It does have its issues, in particular for those relatively good at games to begin with... There's quite a big difference between their language classes though, but I do prefer alternative apps that target a specific language with laser focus. They tend to have better organic content for the purpose of practice. You also need to realize that you will only truly be good at the language if you get to practice using it with other speakers. Something needs to click in your head in the right way.
- troyvit 2y ago
  What apps would you recommend?
  - arghwhat 2y ago
    Depends on your language of choice. For Mandarin, I like Hello Chinese better than Duolingo. It still has a gamification aspect, but the content is much more varied and includes things like practicing reading comprehension and mock conversations, not to mention stroke order practice. I would expect something similar to exist for other popular languages - I know that is the case for Japanese at least.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

aswerty 2y ago

If the features of Duolingo are available in another app (i.e. their various memorization techniques, vocabulary building, various interactive learning, etc.) that doesn't gamify or nag. Let me know since I really detest these aspects of Duolingo. I succumbed to paying for the app since it is virtually unusable with the frequency of ads on the freemium model. They are a very dislikable brand.

BlanketLogic 2y ago
FWIW, I found Busuu great. After a year on busuu and 1000 days on duolingo, I find the former way better for language acquisition.
- aswerty 2y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation. But just checking it out there,it seems to also follow a gamification model that forces you to click "commitment" buttons like you are some kind of child.
ryukoposting 2y ago
I like Duolingo for the exact reasons you don't. I want to learn a language, and I will need to know the basics to be able to talk to people on my honeymoon next year. What you see as "nagging" I see as "holding me accountable to a goal I've set for myself." I can definitely see why you'd want to be able to dial back the notifications, though. On principle, I'd usually be on your side in this kind of situation. But again, for me, in this particular case, the nagging is a feature, not a nuisance. Besides, of all the things an app can nag you about, learning a language is pretty innocuous. Fun fact: if you have a pi-hole, the only ad you'll ever get is their own ad promoting Super Duolingo. I'm assuming it's a video embedded in the app somewhere.
- gwervc 2y ago
  > I want to learn a language Then why are you using Duolingo in the first place? That app has to be the worst method, because people think they are progressing while they in fact don't. From personal experience it's the worst method I tired to learn a language, and the content present for languages I know isn't good either.

iamsaitam 2y ago

"Younger age groups engaging with marketing are looking for a company that has a special, unique personality that's memorable and feels authentic," Let me introduce "Fuck you, Inc.", if you're not into us then fuck you.

teetertater 2y ago
You're probably joking but I'm sure this would make a killing

marban 2y ago

A decade ago, this was known as growth hacking, and everyone aspired to master it.

djeastm 2y ago

I'm a former military linguist who was trained to learn Arabic. I've always disliked and distrusted Duolingo (and before that, Rosetta Stone), for providing people the basics (which they do just fine) but making it seem like fluency is always just one more upgrade or lesson around the corner while not-so-subtly implying that it's your fault that you're not there yet. Even for the most talented learners of languages it takes many, many more hours and types of exposure that these apps cannot achieve. For Arabic, for instance, the military gave us 88 weeks of full-day instruction with native speakers, in addition to homework. And that's all just to achieve basic reading/listening fluency. And many of the people who start the program (and have passed an aptitude test even to start the program) do not complete it. Like I said, it's as good as anything to start, but it's the marketing of it as the complete package that irks me.

barrell 2y ago
> while not-so-subtly implying that it's your fault that you're not there yet It's disappointing to me how many people try learning a language with Duolingo, do not succeed, then just "accept" that they're "bad with languages" and "can't learn them".
- jghn 2y ago
  I use Duo every day, but understand and accept its limitations. It's free, it fits into my schedule, and I do move forward albeit slowly. After about 2 years with my language I'm able to read at around an A2/B1 level. Listening is hit or miss in the A1/A2 level. It depends a lot on the speaker. But I can't speak at all, clearly my brain hasn't rewired itself to think on the fly like that. But that's fine. For me.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
landosaari 2y ago
[dead]
2y ago

sebstefan 2y ago

I must be in the right demographic because I find their violent blackmailing owl shenanigans really funny for a marketting angle. I like it.

WesolyKubeczek 2y ago

I don't know. I'm either too old, or too jaded, or don't give a fuck too much. It was nagging me, and I just ignored it. It's bad, of course, that I have ignored it, because as a result, learning hasn't happened. But it was very easy for me to ignore it. I didn't feel blackmailed. And then I keep wondering what all those years of nagging telemarketing calls one has learned to hang up on despite all the tricks can do to one's psyche.

rckt 2y ago

What I really don't like about Duolingo is how they try to progressively increase your load. Whether it's the monthly achievement or friends' quest, if you try to go faster, then you'll have to go through much more in order to finish those. I experimented with this a bit and found out that to keep the app out of the aggressive mode I just need to do the bare minimum, like 1 lesson per day. And having a sub does not help here. So I just canceled it and doing 1-2 lessons per day to stay in a chill mode.

laverya 2y ago
To be fair, that's actually one of the things that I've liked about it. Pushing me to study more on a week-by-week basis is at least theoretically valuable, no?
- rckt 2y ago
  Working full-time and having a family does not always leave much time for other activities.

cornedor 2y ago

The icon only changes on April fools as a joke or something like that. And it changes for everybody. At least on iPhone, I don't think you can change the app icon without notifying the user.

watwut 2y ago
There is widget with owl that gets sadder and sadder as the day progresses if you did not done duolingo.
Izkata 2y ago
Last year in October they changed it to a melting version of the owl to get users' attention: https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/why-is-duolingo-melting-app-icon-explained/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/why-is-duolingo-melting...

jamager 2y ago

The many ways in which Duolingo is unethical and abusive derive from the simple fact that if it actually worked, even the slightest, then you would stop using the thing and cashing them $$$ For me the worst is that when you indulge, you feel bad and will do something; but with Duolingo you are still indulging the same, however it makes you feel accomplished and that you made your work. No, you didn't — You just watched the ads they wanted you to watch. Doing nothing is literally better than Duolingo.

Daviey 2y ago

I had a pretty good streak, but due to hospitalised sickness I lost it by a few hours. Couldn't face picking the app back up and starting again from a zero streak.

Somersal 2y ago

My problem with Duolingo, as an English person, is the ‘English’ is actually American English (even uses a US flag!) and sometimes marks my answers as wrong when they are actually correct in English! Some of the required responses aren’t even English (e.g. “the books had gotten lost”). I would really appreciate it if they could allow actual English answers as well as American English ones.