Member-only story
Why Duolingo’s Gamification Update isn’t Enough
It’s not about language learning now, but about maintaining my streak
I have recently (and by recently, I mean I’m on a 175-day streak) started learning Spanish on Duolingo again. When I first saw the linear map, I thought this was an interesting change, and I was curious whether it would directly affect my language-learning journey.
In the past, it was easy to break a streak and lose all motivation to restart it, but now, with Duo’s constant reminder on my home screen widget and my long commute, I’ve found myself building up my streak again. All is well.
Until I realised that it was not as simple as it seemed.
I am keeping up my streak, but every day I open the app and drag myself through one single lesson before moving on to other activities in haste. It became a chore, but I did it because I wanted to keep up my streaks in front of my friends. I no longer cared about the global leaderboard, or about progressing on the map.
It became clear soon enough—Duolingo’s new gamification updates weren’t enough.
Removing What Attracts
Any form of learning values one practice — repetition. In language learning, repetition is king. From vocabulary to sentence structure, we see the value in repeating it enough times for it to etch into our long-term memory. And how do we ensure we store it in our long-term memory? We revisit it and repeat it.
One particular feature that existed in the old version, and one that I know was well-received by the public, was the cracked icon. Over time, if you do not revisit or revise old content, the pristine gold icon cracks, and you will need to go back and complete the lesson to restore the icon to its shiny state. It is a perfect motivator for me to go back and relearn what I may have forgotten, it irks my perfectionist tendencies. How could I let my screen be filled with cracked icons?!
The new design promptly throws the whole idea out the window. While I see past content make its way to my…
