The Only App That Always Wins the Battle for Your Attention
Spoiler: it’s Duolingo.
Just ask James Clark. He managed to extend his 471-day streak this year from the Mount Everest Base Camp trek.
He was so exhausted every night of his trip that he could barely think straight, much less speak Spanish. “I didn’t really want to do Duolingo,” Clark said. “But what I really didn’t want to do was lose my streak.” So the video editor from Britain bought a Wi-Fi card to call his girlfriend and keep his streak. “Mainly so I could keep my streak,” he said.
That is dedication. Or addiction.
After a week of inactivity, Duolingo gets the hint and stops sending messages. But on that seventh day, before it rests, the app tries one last notification:
These reminders don’t seem to be working. We’ll stop sending them for now.
That one does work. As it happens, it’s one of their most successful alerts, Nagler says.
I despise streaks. They feel manipulative to me. But obviously not everyone thinks that way.
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