This week I removed Duolingo from my phone.
I have had Duolingo for something like four years (for those that do not know, Duolingo is a language "app", as the kids call them). The purpose of the app is to teach you a foreign language. You get credit for consecutive days of streaks. You earn "hearts", which you can exchange for things like extra tries and the ability to miss a day.
Was it useful? Earlier I would have said "yes, somewhat"; now I would say "no". The reason for this is that I came to figure out the app does not really "teach" you a language the way one would learn it in a class or even from a program or book.
Traditional language study involves a combination of grammar, words, and structure (the idea of "learning a language the way a child does" has come to hold increasingly little belief for me; once a native language is learned, all grammar and structure is processed through that model). There is no other way ultimately to actually learn to speak versus parroting a dozen phrases for tourists.
Duolingo has words. It has minimal grammar and minimal structure; I learn "words" but learning how they are managed by grammar and structure is intuited, not spelled out.
What I found over time is that as I focused on a language I do know something about - Japanese - I was reaching the point that I was "failing" the lesson for the day and could not go forward. Then it hit me: I was able to progress farther in the languages that I knew and less so in the languages that I did not know - I was using my learning to make progress to the point I already knew, not progressing into new areas.
But the thing that forced me off was the ads.
Duolingo is free, of course - and by free, we mean "You are the product". After every lesson are two advertisements: the first was for whatever was paying the company, the second was for Duolingo. It was regular: after every lesson. Suddenly as I began failing, I realized I was spending at least 20-30% of my time subjected to ads to get my "credit".
Monday night, I was done. Off the phone it came. My 74-odd day streak canceled. My time was worth more than that (and it was obviously not the way to learn a language.
After the visceral satisfaction of wiping it off my phone, the thought suddenly hit me: how many other items are eating into my time?
A big one was e-mail.
I am the sort of person that tends to forget to unsubscribe to e-mail lists. And then I am surprised when I open my e-mail box and am subjected to multiple e-mails for things that are no longer relevant or I no longer do. I will push them to the electronic trash; why do I not just unsubscribe?
I suspect is much like my recent discovery with Duolingo: I have become so accustomed to the noise that I do not think about it at all.
Does this mean I can solve this problem overnight? I suspect not: e-mails will take a while to unsubscribe to as they come in and apps will exist until I realize I am not using them. But underlying all of this is the same realization that I have had that has ultimately driven me to abandon most all forms of entertainment and media: the amount of noise that I intake is not worth the signal that appears to be coming through.
Yah, that noise to signal ratio has increased, it is time to unsubscribe to a few emails TB, a timely post.
ReplyDeleteNylon12, it really has gotten worse, has it not?
DeleteMy biggest problem is that I sign up for things and then do not take the time to unsubscribe when the thing is no longer relevant. This seems to be 90% of my problem.
"Noise" is an apt term for it. And it's true, we become so accustomed to it that we filter it out. Which prompts the producers of the noise to search for new ways to break through to get our attention.
ReplyDeleteTo your point, we're the ones who lose because of the time we waste dealing with it. Even if they offer an opt-out, it's still my time that's lost. Actually, it's amazing how much they (whomever they are) engage us in nonsense that we really don't want to be engaged in. But we get used to it until it feels "normal." I reckon that's why I spend much less time on the computer nowadays.
Leigh, I think the big shock for me this week (which ended in deleting Duolingo) was the amount of time that I was spending not doing anything but waiting for the ads. For what? For a "reward" that is neither real nor impactful. And once that thought happened, I started looking at the other things in my life.
DeleteYou are right - even the "opt out" is more time and something that they are making me do. If I were smart, I would just set aside a small time every week to attend to that sort of housekeeping issue (just as now, I am starting to try to delete e-mails I no longer need by giving myself a goal of 10 e-mails minimum).
It does very much discourage both computer use as well as signing up for things on websites of the things I buy.
I'm way ahead of you TB. I unsubscribed to Duolingo maybe five or six years ago for much the same reasons. I was using it to refresh a language that I had taken for four years back in high school and saw that it was only teaching me words and not their proper use. I am also ahead of you on the email thing. I keep two accounts, one for any sort of website information fill in the blank and one strictly for personal communications. The latter one doesn't require anything for maintenance. But the former one does require a bit of daily unsubscribing to keep from getting blitzed with emails. I only do that because I do get a number of legitimate emails in it and don't want to lose them among the rubble.
ReplyDeleteEd - No surprise you are ahead of me on either of these things (you are much smarter than I).
DeleteThe Duolingo thing bothers me only because it took me so long to realize what was going on. But when I started "failing" the same lessons repeatedly, it was clear that what I needed to have happening was not happening.
I actually have two e-mails as well, my one from years ago when I first set one up and the one I use for this blog. I really could use a third one at this point either for the "website" purposes or for personal use (my current personal e-mail can be glitchy). To be completely honest with you, The Ravishing Mrs. TB may have already set one up on my behalf for items that she signs me in for.
"You get credit for consecutive days of streaks. You earn 'hearts', which you can exchange for things like extra tries and the ability to miss a day."
ReplyDeleteYou fool, you've wandered into an area I have some knowledge in! Ware the nerdspew!
It's not about trying to teach you anything; it's about trying to keep you engaged consistently. That's a standard formula for free-to-play games: incentivize daily interactions with small rewards (and by extension, punish you for failing to interact by withholding them), conditioning the target to spend a small amount of time on the program, and perhaps offer some glimpse of what Shiny Wonderful Thing you might get if you just stick it out for a few more days.
The prime motivation is to create a habitual interaction. If you learn something in the process, more's the better, as that will improve your opinion of the process and reinforce that you Just Can't Go Without It. But that is a fringe benefit for the end user (and the company) at best.
I spend far too much time on digital interactives, so I whole-heartedly understand having one's own moment of stepping back and asking, "What is my time worth?". Sometimes the product in question prompts the reflection through some decision by its creators, other times I simply look at my aggregated time logged and think, "Yeah, that's enough for me." Even if I am... let's say, less than consistent about it in other situations.