HOW DUOLINGO’S STREAKS METHOD CAUSES ADDICTION

I can say from experience, Luis Von Ahn has got me hooked.

The Talking Bird

Luis Von Ahn. Does that name sound familiar?

Maybe not. Perhaps you may know what he’s created though. We’ll give you a hint. It’s an app. It has a bird logo. It's a bird that speaks, but it actually speaks every language. If you didn’t get it yet

It’s Duolingo.

An app that is helping more people learn languages worldwide than the actual educational system. Who would have guessed someone could do it better (take that education system)?

Through Duolingo, there’s actually a lot to learn about how humans are wired, and we can use the lessons from the app to actually increase your chances of sticking with good habits.

But first, we need some origins.

How Does One Make Duolingo

Education was a big deal in Luis Von Ahn’s life. He had a single mother who worked hard for his schooling, and Luis was able to attend college in the US and get a computer science degree.

So later in life, he got to thinking that he wanted to give equal education access to the world. But starting with all of the education is a little daunting. So he thought, why not zoom in on one thing.

Eventually, believe it or not, they ended up landing on…languages. Why?

Well, language is important. And English specifically is a game changer, as it can increase your income potential drastically. So you English speakers out there (including me) have no excuses.

They knew the phone was the best way to do it. 

Healthy Addictions

Phones are awesome. Magical even. But they also suck, because you can utilize a tool the wrong way, like scrolling all day and getting 0 work done.

So the question became, how in the world could one make people want to learn a language? When there is the option of looking at endless entertainment, how could you remove the friction of people leaving the dopamine hole they have dug themselves into.

As it turns out, the answer is to use the same psychological BS these social media apps are using, and just use them for the good of mankind.

Imagine you got addicted to learning Spanish instead of…whatever the kids are watching these days.

So what is the one thing that Duolingo used to psychologically dupe us into loving language learning? 

Streaks

Streaks work. It makes kids on Snapchat feel like they are going to melt down if they lose their 1,364 streaks with their friend they haven’t talked to in 5 years.

In a psychology article by the Hustle Escape, it’s put this way:

“Streaks don’t just breed robotic automaticity, however. They breed pride, fear, and guilt. They create an emotional response and an implicit system of reward and punishment. The longer they go on, the greater the perceived gain of maintaining them and the greater the perceived loss of breaking them.”

In other words, you hate to lose something you’ve built over a long time. If there’s no streak, no big deal if it’s broken.

But the moment you realize you’ve been doing it for 14 days, and you feel you’ll lose all that progress, the psychological motivation kicks in for you to get off your lazy bum and do that task. 

Okay, So?

Well, now we understand the power of streaks. We like seeing progress. Duolingo gives us a sick animation of a bird turning into some fireball as it congratulates us for making it to day 3.

But we can take this knowledge far outside the app, into our own lives.

Think about something you have always told yourself you’re going to do, but you just don’t ever do it. We all have our thing, big or small.

See a lot of us actually don’t suck at starting habits, we suck at sticking to habits. We meditate. Go to the gym. Make our bed. Some days it’s just easier than others. But by day 7, we’re in an entirely new place.

That is where we need a new motivation to kick in. One that goes beyond how we feel in the moment.

Imagine how more likely you would be to keep that habit if you did it on day 1, and marked it off. Could be on a piece of paper, on your phone, in a journal, wherever the hell.

But just begin to push the snowball. The next day will come around and that motivation you had may be withering. You have no desire to sit and meditate. It’s stupid and silly and probably doesn’t even work.

But you can’t help but look at the check mark you wrote the day before. If you stop now, you’re not just not doing the habit. You’re taking the streak back to day 1. So now the streak is actually the thing making you fall back into the good habit, despite whether you want to do it or not.

So give it a go, my friend. And remember how many days you have been reading this newsletter. Don’t wanna break that streak now do ya?

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And yeah, maybe Elon will call you baby too.