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

businessinsider.com

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

#71

Post by laverya »

rckt wrote: post #48

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 h…

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?

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

#72

Post by teetertater »

iamsaitam wrote: post #20

"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.

You're probably joking but I'm sure this would make a killing

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

#73

Post by Izkata »

cornedor wrote: post #50

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.

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...

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

#74

Post by anonfornoreason »

ryukoposting wrote: post #54
anonfornoreason wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s important, why cede control of your own discipline to a notification loop of a for-profit company? A technique I like to use is to wake up an hour early everyday and do some studying before anyone else is awake. Making dedicated time for something is like making a commitment to myself. Strengthens my ability to do it each time, feels more like I am in control. Awesome to be learning something new either way t…

I started writing this before you updated your comment. I'm glad I saw the change, because I was going to reply with a similar level of snark! In my case, I'm learning German. My wife already knows a good bit of German (which she learned in "real" classes, not Duolingo) so I have a captive practice buddy. We speak German with each other sometimes, and she has coached me through some things Duolingo can't - like prope…

Thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like what I do too, but for the social component I try and find someone learning the same thing. Sometimes that’s easy, sometimes not.

Like most people with young kids these days, I’m struggling with the reduced willpower people are trading for their digital conveniences. My original comment took that reflexivity too far and ignored the obvious utility of apps (I have ones I use too!) with a blanket assumption.

Cheers!

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

#75

Post by anonfornoreason »

LoganDark wrote: post #55
anonfornoreason wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s important, why cede control of your own discipline to a notification loop of a for-profit company? A technique I like to use is to wake up an hour early everyday and do some studying before anyone else is awake. Making dedicated time for something is like making a commitment to myself. Strengthens my ability to do it each time, feels more like I am in control. Awesome to be learning something new either way t…

> If it’s important, why cede control of your own discipline to a notification loop of a for-profit company? What makes you think all minds are equally capable of controlling their own discipline? (look up executive dysfunction)

I generally don’t think all people are equally capable. I have a kid with fairly severe adhd, and i am mildly affected myself. I’m very familiar with executive dysfunction. What I have found is that it’s a muscle I can exercise and keep in shape, and if I start slacking on it it’s very easy for my discipline to fall apart. It took a couple of years to build up that fitness as well.

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

#76

Post by tekeous »

aswerty wrote: post #8

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.

Mango is super good and free with most library cards.

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

#77

Post by rckt »

laverya wrote: post #71
rckt wrote: post #48

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 h…

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?

Working full-time and having a family does not always leave much time for other activities.

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

#78

Post by LoganDark »

anonfornoreason wrote: post #75
LoganDark wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it’s important, why cede control of your own discipline to a notification loop of a for-profit company? What makes you think all minds are equally capable of controlling their own discipline? (look up executive dysfunction)

I generally don’t think all people are equally capable. I have a kid with fairly severe adhd, and i am mildly affected myself. I’m very familiar with executive dysfunction. What I have found is that it’s a muscle I can exercise and keep in shape, and if I start slacking on it it’s very easy for my discipline to fall apart. It took a couple of years to build up that fitness as well.

I have fairly severe ADHD myself, and while it's possible for me to be vaguely functional, it already takes all of my energy just to not quit my job, and then there is no energy left for my personal time.

(I love my job, but that unfortunately doesn't stop it from being made nearly impossible for me. thanks, ADHD)

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

#79

Post by aswerty »

barrell wrote: post #49
aswerty wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? It seems pretty opaque what they are like since it seems to be credit card up front with both of them.

Babbel kind of takes traditional textbook style learning, and adapts it quite well to technology. It's also built around really colloquial conversations, and the audio is high quality. I would say it tends to focus more on how people actually speak than textbook-style speech Rosetta Stone was the big player before Duolingo. They had a method that involved not using your mother tongue, which they called 'immersion'. I…

Thanks for the summation. I was aware of Rosetta Stone as an older entity.

Babbel sounds interesting.

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

#80

Post by djeastm »

watwut wrote: post #62
djeastm wrote: post #26

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 i…

Duolingo own marketing does not claim they teach up to fluency. I never seen anyone claim that duolingo can, should or did teach up to fluency. I have seen people claim that duolingo made them able to consume simple content or have basic conversation (usually they claim it about Spanish which is the longest course).

Indeed, it's a beginner course, but they market their app as if they've discovered some secret algorithm to learning languages when any of their students would get just as much value out of any number of other independent learning methods.

But at least it's not University courses which are, dollar for dollar, ridiculously overpriced.

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