The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
businessinsider.com
The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
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Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#2The 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.
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#3The 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.
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).
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#4The 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.
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.
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#5The 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.
It's emotional and psychological manipulation to get you to pay for their subscription... nothing else.
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#6I 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.
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#7[deleted]
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#8If 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.
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#9The 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.
It's emotional and psychological manipulation to get you to pay for their subscription... nothing else.
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.
Re: The meanest app: Duolingo subjects its users to "emotional blackmail"
#10I 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.
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.