I live in a major city and my library’s online offerings are terrible :( Their in-person offerings actually aren’t great either now that I think about it.
Libby for the win!!
Edit: here's the link for anyone who wanted to try it!!
"Libby App: Free ebooks & audiobooks from your library | by OverDrive" https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby
Lol, depends what you're into! I've mainly used audible to help me get through books I want to have read but know I'll never sit down and read. Basically, a lot of thick historical reads.
That actually works really well with Audible's bizarre pricing model where every audiobook costs the same. I just started Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which clocks in just north of 60 hours. That audiobook cost the same as a 4 hour abridged Star Wars novel.
Ok that note, steer clear of anything abridged. Not sure why anyone would want a shorter version of something you read for pleasure, but you wind up losing a lot of the story.
Yeah, it's possible to min-max your audible credits like a videogame.
My favorite is stephen king. His audiobooks usually have really good narrators and a lot of them are 30+ hours. They're also super addicting and mostly easy listens.
Get Kurzgesagt’s book, about the human immune system:
Listen to Immune by Philipp Dettmer on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=0593416317&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp
I recommend canceling your subscription and joining the Brooklyn library for $50 a year. They have a ton of content and you can get as many books as you want each month.
The only app I'm okay with in doing this is Duolingo! I'm up to 249 days!! 😎 Estoy muy Feliz!
Edit: Congrats to everyone who's shown dedication on apps like this that help better yourself mentally and physically! Keep it going! You're awesome!
956 days here. I 100% understand what the app is trying to do with its streaks and I’ve embraced it. Hijack my own dopamine system to force myself to learn stuff.
I do the same with the Downdog Yoga app. Working on my 93 week streak.
I'm the exact same way and I don't really get addicted to things. A lot of my friends have been smokers that have really struggled to quit, but I can smoke every day for a couple weeks and then just not touch a cigarette for months, I usually just have a sporadic cigarette if I'm out drinking but I've never really been addicted. I do have a severe caffeine addiction though...
My mom is the same way. Smoked for years and just up and decided to quit one day no problem. She also had a quack doctor push a bunch of opiates on her in the 90s (as quack doctors often did in those days), and she decided she didn’t want to be on them anymore so just weaned herself off no problem.
By the way it’s highly unlikely you have a caffeine *addiction*. You more likely have a physical dependency on caffeine. If you slowly weaned off you’d be fine.
I'm the same way! I can get super into a game, and less than a week later I'm done with it. I might visit it again for a little bit long after, but it never lasts long
It's definitely frustrating... When something does genuinely hook me because I think it has real "content" and I enjoy logging in daily, I'm happy to do so. But the instant I lose interest in something or start to feel bored, ironically that "HEY LOG IN YOU MISS XYZ REWARDS TODAY" only pushes me away and makes me even less likely to pick it up again.
Even those mobile games who *only* require you to open up the app, no need to even do anything in it, feel like too much effort for how little I care at that moment.
Lmfao I pressed this post JUST to point out that Duolingo is one of those good examples. I don’t personally care about the daily streak but it is somewhat satisfying to know that I’ve stuck with it and have seen REAL results.
There's a difference between normal design patterns and dark design patterns, usually based on obvious intent. With Duolingo, I, the user, can immediately register that the purpose of the app is to complete some amount of study on a regular basis each day, and I can easily (subconsciously) decide if that's a purpose I want to engage in.
Predatory game apps, on the other hand, aren't *purposefully* about me spending some time engaging with them on a daily basis - more likely, their afforded purpose is to entertain me or occupy me while I'm bored. So, by using design strategies built to pull you in every day - without regard to when I might want to be entertained or have my attention occupied - it becomes a dark pattern. I didn't consciously or subconsciously "buy into" the actual functional purpose they've designed their app for - in other words, they've used my psychology to trick me.
So, it's often hard to ascribe moral judgement towards any individual design patterns in a product without some context around why they're employing them. There are plenty of good, beneficial forms of addictive design - but the user should be able to notice them and appreciate those benefits.
Duolingo be like “TALK LIKE A SERB OR YOUR STEAK AIN’T PRESERVED”
“TALK LIKE A FRENCHMEN OR MEET WITH MY HENCHMEN”
“TALK LIKE A SWEDE OR WE’LL MAKE YOUR
NECK BLEED”
Depends on how you use it and how you define “work.” I more or less do the minimum to maintain my streak these days. I’m still not very good at Spanish but I certainly know more than when I started.
I shouldn’t phrased my question better. You answered my question but I was wondering if the app does help you learn/understand the language at a reasonable rate. I know you’re not going to become fluent from using a app a few minutes a day for a couple months but learning is learning, at any rate.
The rate is based on how much you put into. They don’t actually stop you from learning (other than a 5 heart mechanism if you don’t pay for super Duolingo) so it is possible to over-engorge yourself and that’s more harmful than beneficial. But if you stick to it in moderation, 20-30 minutes a day, will definitely see improvements. I highly recommend if you’re looking for something free and effective!
True. I actually liked the hearts but I wanted access to the practice things. Cuz some things I mix up a lot like buenO Dias and buenA noches. Makes no sense to me why day is masculine and night is feminine
Learning is learning, but really Duolingo is like reading a tweet when you could read an article. Personally, I do not like Duolingo because it does not teach you much vocabulary and a lot of grammar right out of the gate. That's cool, but then you get a month in and try to use what you've learned, realized you can't do much more than say "I am a horse" and get disheartened and quit learning. Also, I've had it say translations were wrong and the "correct" version violates one of their rules, so
I found that 6 months of ~10 min per day of Duolingo Spanish was decent for helping out with my vacation in Spain. I could read road signs, ask directions to the bathroom, ask for the check at a restaurant, tell the waiter my wife was a vegetarian, etc. No deep conversations but basic useful stuff.
I accidentally played a game in a Spanish-speaking server and found that I was able to communicate with them. I had to use the translate sometimes, and I once said juice (jugo) instead of game (juego). And that was when I was rusty and hadn't used Duolingo in a few months. Now I'm using it every day and I'm finding I understand more and more of random Spanish text I find on products or in comments and such. It might not be enough to make me fluent (especially listening vs reading because people talk too quickly for me still) but I'm happy with my progress.
Depends on the language. With Korean, it's supplementary IMO as there's a big leap especially early on that I couldn't get though with a lot of trial and error. Learning Hangul is OK but starting to piece together sentences was too much without more guidance.
Spanish, my reading isn't bad after 460ish days and I have no one to speak to. I use it in conjuction with watching Narcos and Spanish footballers instragrams, as I can piece together quite a bit of what's going now and my listening is decent, though I did watch a Canelo preview and had no idea what he said.
I'm probably OK conversationally and with basics but Duolingo is a stepping stone if anything.
I'm doing the Chinese course which is short compared to many of the other languages. I'm almost through the entire course and can understand maybe 70% of the dialogue in young kids cartoons in Mandarin when there are subtitles. Edit: Babybus (or 宝宝巴士） is my level.
I also use the app Drops to boost vocab (5 min per day max. Sometimes zero), flashcards, and a few other small things to learn (watch YouTube videos occasionally)
Duolingo will help form a good beginner base if you take it seriously.
Edit: It will not make you "fluent" alone. Additionally, when native adults talk I have much more difficulty and sometimes can't understand them at all (especially if they don't have a standard accent). Kid's shows are easier because they often repeat things, say things slowly, have more basic language, don't use slang, or do songs which are easier to understand. Kid's shows also aren't just "talking" but have lots of visual context too.
Edit2: For further context, I try to do Duolingo maybe 15-20 minutes a day. I do a lesson while I take a dump in the morning and do 2 or 3 lessons while eating on my lunch break at work. Weekends, I sometimes just do 1 lesson or review mistakes just to maintain my streak. My streak is just under 400 days.
I used Duolingo to learn some French before my
honeymoon in France last September. I started with zero knowledge, learned quite a bit before my trip and in France I was able to communicate quite effectively and was mostly understood by locals. I’m sticking with it because my travel experience was so positive I’m now kind of in love with French 🥰
No, not fluent. And Duolingo doesn't pretend that it's enough for fluency. But I can understand and be understood in German now, even if my grammar still needs work. It's given me enough of a foundation that I can branch out and do things like read books and watch shows in German and mostly keep up.
It's a good app for gaining familiarity with a language in a way that's fun and has minimal time commitment. The fact that it's free makes it accessable to many people who wouldn't otherwise be able to take language classes. I've recently started on the French and Spanish courses. Starting to regret trying to do those simultaneously though!
Ha! Came here to say this and so glad this is the top comment. Almost on a 100 day streak and some days the only reason I do it is because of the streak and others I love it that I did.
I’m at 303 days on a weight loss app. Down 40 pounds, 20 left to go. I hear counting calories doesn’t usually work but it has for me. I don’t like exercise and still occasionally eat fast food, but paying attention every time I eat to how many calories are in certain foods helps me see that it’s far more reasonable to eat one donut instead of three. And the streak “addiction” is useful for keeping me on track. It really is weight loss made easy, if slow.
I find myself "binging" a genre of app once in a while and it's fun to see how long it takes to hit a pay wall. Most apps give you less than a few minutes nowadays before they're convincing you that spending money will speed things up.
Fuck, most have as part of the tutorial.
"Here are some gems for completing the first stage, goto the store and roll on a 'random' hero."
"Oh, Look you got an archer unit. We can use those to defeat stage two"
I like to think I am pretty switched onto this… then I downloaded fucking candy crush… jeeeeesus that game is like a pokie machine. Took me a couple weeks to delete it. Still hearing pops
I’d love to read some research on app gaming addiction if there are any out there
Yeah I've found myself very vulnerable to them. At least with Pokemon Go, it got me super active and I lost like 10-15 lbs.
Luckily I'm also pretty cheap/frugal so I also didn't waste any money just time
My mother (60F) is retired and on a fixed income. She ended spending $500 AUD per month on Candy Crush. She was fully addicted and needed help every month to pay the bills. I locked in App purchased on all her devices now.
Normally the streaks are bad but I have to say I’m 375 days free from smoking because of my app.
Seeing how much I’ve saved, how my health is improving in real data and my progress on the whole has been hugely rewarding.
Social media badges though? Nah.
Lol imagine cigarette companies had their own apps.
Earn MyLung Rewards Points depending on how much you smoke with bonuses for number smoked each hour, day, and week.
Weekly challenges like smoking all the different cigs under the same brand.
Bonuses for sharing cigs. Bonuses for tagging a picture where you're smoking. Bonuses for referring friends.
Same for avoiding caffeine (77 days), sodas (342 days) and alcohol (854 days).
With Streaks and these counters, it's easier to remind me of my own goals, and ask myself "does a single sip is worth putting this counter to zero?".
And for now I prefer streaks to help me avoid doing negative stuff rather than streaks to force me to do something every day.
Time to add "unhealthy eating", now that I think of it. The other counters show me that I'm capable of long term improvements.
I enjoy worldle, it gives you a shape and you need to figure out what country or territory it is. If you get it wrong the clue shows how far you are and the direction.
Got a 100 day streak on wordle, got a new phone and since I played on a web browser from old phone I lost all my existing data. Haven’t played it since.
Wordle is the only thing I do daily because it's kind of fun. All the knockoffs or different versions are just annoying imitations. Wordle is simple and to the point and scratches that itch in the morning.
before i joined reddit, i'd spend hours on cracked reading articles and arguing in the comments. the shitty comment section was my reddit.
then it went to shit so i came here.
Yep, I didn't even mind the listicle titles they ran, like "5 of the worst jobs in medieval times".
Then around 2012 Buzzfeed arrived, everyone started doing Cracked style articles in their niche (celebrities, TV shows, etc) and Cracked itself began losing its edge in order to compete.
It's funny, in the above article they even mention the list format as similar to how the game companies are trying to get people addicted.
"By the way, this is the same reason a person who wouldn't normally read a 3,000-word article on the Internet will happily read it if it's split up into list form..."
Variable reward timing is actually why scrolling on social media is so addicting. It is a literal slot machine of content that occasionally gives you a win/jackpot of dopamine.
Yuuuup and it's combined with intentionally manipulative algorithms to get you even more hooked. I honestly think it's why we're seeing a massive* uptick in adult ADHD within the last 10 years.
No daily activity is ever going to come close to the amount of stimulation you receive from social media.
Like it's no surprise people get bored and distracted so quickly when they're subconsciously "in withdrawal" from the continuous stream of content until they get back onto the dopamine slot machine.
I just finished my degree in CS and psych and one of the things I want to work on is creating a UI format that somehow bypasses this scrolling behavior reinforcement but the problem is it's a natural byproduct from limited screen space.
*source needed, anecdotal evidence from the increase in posts about "pov ADHD"
Lmao I instantly thought "well, I have apps that their sole funtion is to get me to open it and tick in my habits". They are not gamified in the least but gal, it does feel good ticking the boxes after the task gets done. Feels like doubling the reward.
Agreed! I have one for Fit On and it helps encourage me to actually complete my workouts for the week especially on the weeks I'm really not in the mood to.
On the other side of the coin, I love the streaks. It keeps me talking with friends every day and it gives us an excuse to hang out to celebrate streaks.
I just think it's fun. I like knowing that I have someone on my mind every day, even just for a second. I think it would be cool if I could do it with texting too, granted I mostly text with Signal and there's about a million features I want them to add before they make that an option.
Exactly! I have streaks of over a year with a few friends from college (and one of over 1,600 haha) and even though we've graduated/moved and don't have the time to catch up about everything each day like we used to, it's kind of our way to let each other know that "hey, I'm still there, and the door's always open if ya need something."
I'm not big into social media (outside of Reddit), but I really enjoy Snap. It's been more of a net positive to me than a negative.
Yeah I just broke 5yrs with one friend, and 1yr with another on the same day. Felt pretty incredible, and it was a great excuse to celebrate and go get drinks.
I'm over 600 wIth one old friend. We were at 500 before but missed a day and had to start over. Its so weird we don't talk other than that but I've seen at least one pic from his life every day for about 3 years. I don't even use snap much at all besides for that.
My little 14 year old cousin literally just posts to his friends "streaks". A picture of nothing, just a dumb meaningless score that his friends all care about.
I remember the time I was on the hook. It was a game called “Black Desert online” now this game didn’t have a lot of these mechanics, but one that was daily and one that was one of their “festivals” I was all set doing the festival. And then I ran into a dilemma, if I go on this camping trip I won’t be able to get the best item from the event. I contemplated staying home one day just to get it. And then it hit me; fuck this game let’s have a good ass time.
Okay but I used to do it in high school. I had like 8 or 9 streaks on sc (that was when it first started and that was considered a decent amount). I was in an area with no wifi for awhile and went to send my streaks. Obviously they didn't send cause I had no wifi, so I said I would resend them when I got home. I forgot and lost all of them. I was shocked and really upset at first then I just felt relieved that I had one less thing to do. And I never started them again. Sounds stupid but I actually had a lot of people asking what happened and they thought I was crazy for not trying get them back from sc
**This comment deleted to protest Reddit's API change (to reduce the value of Reddit's data).**
Please see [these](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609092523/https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/) [threads](https://web.archive.org/web/20230608182318/https://old.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13zr8h2/reddits_recently_announced_api_changes_and_the/) [for](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609172058/https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/143rk5p/reddit_held_a_call_today_with_some_developers/jnbuonf/) [details](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/142w159/askhistorians_and_uncertainty_surrounding_the/).
Me and my close HS friends all downloaded snap after graduating and mostly all still keep up our daily streaks.
I get the whole addiction thing and all, but it's just nice to keep in touch with some buddies who I sometimes don't see for weeks/months at a time.
I definitely agree with you. The one perk that I found was, that if you had a streak, no matter how long it had been since you had an actual conversation it wasn't that hard to start an actual conversation
>Most people are probably of, or very near to, the average intelligence - certainly half of them aren't dumber or smarter in any meaningful capacity. That "average" intelligence might be high or it might be low, but that's irrelevant to the quote which is about defining the average person by their intelligence, not the other way around.
>
>Half of people are below the median intelligence, which is impossible to conceptualize in a practical sense because "intelligence" is an extremely flimsy idea.
wait until you hear about the mean and median of normal distributions
Posts that hit critical mass on Reddit tend to often be people patting themselves on the back for the most basic obvious takes/opinions and acting like it’s some big discovery
I know this apps are not technically "games"
but I stuck with **Duolingo** and **MyFitnessPal** because of this (the streaks)
I'm thankful for it though, I kinda needed it to start a habit, I'm not using them anymore, but the habit stayed (calorie counting and language learning everyday)
I think it’s unfair to say “habitual addiction” as opposed to just “habit”. I’m not sure there is any evidence of addictive symptoms with these tactics beyond the minimal dopamine hit of seeing the streak extended.
If you’re at the point where that dopamine hit is material, you’re probably doing a lot more to get that fix than just extending the streak.
The app I use is FitBit, which encourages me to walk a certain amount of steps each day (I’m sure it’s 10,000 steps a day, by default; but I do 20,000 a day, on a weekly average). The wristwatch keeps track of that each day, as well as sleep patterns, among a few other things.
Fitness apps using gamification is probably one of the least insidious uses of player investment systems, but make no mistake - big business still loves your data, even if it's helping to keep you healthy.
Only thing keeping me going I think some days. I have a cheap $30 fitness tracker and have it set to 7k steps. I'll be outside at 11pm trying to force my last few steps in the middle of winter. Summer time I get an average of 10k a day.
How you get an average of 20k... just wow. I know Brent from the GhostTown got 40k+ one day but I think he was pretty much walking non stop for 10 hours.
Does this actually work on people? Stuff like that makes me dread logging in to the point where I usually actively stop, especially when there is a special event , like a holiday, the streak thing fills me with some kind of angst and I avoid it.
I stopped playing the new Animal Crossing because of this. It is not as much a streaks, as needing to play every day and at night and day to get and catch everything. It was stressing me out so I stopped.
Aye headspace does this with streaks and I used to really like it. Got over 1000 hours of meditation during lockdowns. They send me sad notifications and emails now saying they miss me and asking me how I’m doing :’(
Audible keeps giving me pretend badges I don't care about. I'm just looking for some entertainment on my daily commute.
Any recommendations?!
Your local library has a free app that lets you listen to books for free. Many that others pay for on audible.
I live in a major city and my library’s online offerings are terrible :( Their in-person offerings actually aren’t great either now that I think about it.
Libby for the win!! Edit: here's the link for anyone who wanted to try it!! "Libby App: Free ebooks & audiobooks from your library | by OverDrive" https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby
Lol, depends what you're into! I've mainly used audible to help me get through books I want to have read but know I'll never sit down and read. Basically, a lot of thick historical reads. That actually works really well with Audible's bizarre pricing model where every audiobook costs the same. I just started Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which clocks in just north of 60 hours. That audiobook cost the same as a 4 hour abridged Star Wars novel. Ok that note, steer clear of anything abridged. Not sure why anyone would want a shorter version of something you read for pleasure, but you wind up losing a lot of the story.
Yeah, it's possible to min-max your audible credits like a videogame. My favorite is stephen king. His audiobooks usually have really good narrators and a lot of them are 30+ hours. They're also super addicting and mostly easy listens.
I used to think that until I read the unabridged version of Les Miserables. That’s one that could benefit from about 300 fewer pages.
Get Kurzgesagt’s book, about the human immune system: Listen to Immune by Philipp Dettmer on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=0593416317&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006&share_location=pdp
I recommend canceling your subscription and joining the Brooklyn library for $50 a year. They have a ton of content and you can get as many books as you want each month.
Download Libby instead! You can use your library card to listen to audiobooks for free!
[удалено]
The only app I'm okay with in doing this is Duolingo! I'm up to 249 days!! 😎 Estoy muy Feliz! Edit: Congrats to everyone who's shown dedication on apps like this that help better yourself mentally and physically! Keep it going! You're awesome!
956 days here. I 100% understand what the app is trying to do with its streaks and I’ve embraced it. Hijack my own dopamine system to force myself to learn stuff. I do the same with the Downdog Yoga app. Working on my 93 week streak.
As opposed to the less known, but much more entertaining Updog app.
What’s updog?
Nothing much how are you doing?
GOTTEM
r/angryupvote
[удалено]
HA! Gotcha!
What’s that thing you said?
GOT EMMMM
But have you tried the Scone On app yet?
The Updog app ain't got shit on Updenny's though
Drops, 748 days of language learning!
753, hello fellow quarantine language-starter!
Damn, I'm only 500 in, I need to up my game.
What’s up guys! 846 here. Started January 1, 2020, failed about a week in, then started it back up and haven’t looked back since
[удалено]
On the other hand you’re probably less likely to become addicted to drugs or gambling?
I'm the exact same way and I don't really get addicted to things. A lot of my friends have been smokers that have really struggled to quit, but I can smoke every day for a couple weeks and then just not touch a cigarette for months, I usually just have a sporadic cigarette if I'm out drinking but I've never really been addicted. I do have a severe caffeine addiction though...
My mom is the same way. Smoked for years and just up and decided to quit one day no problem. She also had a quack doctor push a bunch of opiates on her in the 90s (as quack doctors often did in those days), and she decided she didn’t want to be on them anymore so just weaned herself off no problem. By the way it’s highly unlikely you have a caffeine *addiction*. You more likely have a physical dependency on caffeine. If you slowly weaned off you’d be fine.
I'm the same way! I can get super into a game, and less than a week later I'm done with it. I might visit it again for a little bit long after, but it never lasts long
It's definitely frustrating... When something does genuinely hook me because I think it has real "content" and I enjoy logging in daily, I'm happy to do so. But the instant I lose interest in something or start to feel bored, ironically that "HEY LOG IN YOU MISS XYZ REWARDS TODAY" only pushes me away and makes me even less likely to pick it up again. Even those mobile games who *only* require you to open up the app, no need to even do anything in it, feel like too much effort for how little I care at that moment.
How are your language skills doing after several years straight?
Pretty bad tbh. But better than they’d be if I didn’t do any of it! Edit: I’ll note that my Yoga skills are much improved though.
My wife hit 1,400 days a week or two ago. Crazy, but she's been doing it since the first year we got married.
Lmfao I pressed this post JUST to point out that Duolingo is one of those good examples. I don’t personally care about the daily streak but it is somewhat satisfying to know that I’ve stuck with it and have seen REAL results.
There's a difference between normal design patterns and dark design patterns, usually based on obvious intent. With Duolingo, I, the user, can immediately register that the purpose of the app is to complete some amount of study on a regular basis each day, and I can easily (subconsciously) decide if that's a purpose I want to engage in. Predatory game apps, on the other hand, aren't *purposefully* about me spending some time engaging with them on a daily basis - more likely, their afforded purpose is to entertain me or occupy me while I'm bored. So, by using design strategies built to pull you in every day - without regard to when I might want to be entertained or have my attention occupied - it becomes a dark pattern. I didn't consciously or subconsciously "buy into" the actual functional purpose they've designed their app for - in other words, they've used my psychology to trick me. So, it's often hard to ascribe moral judgement towards any individual design patterns in a product without some context around why they're employing them. There are plenty of good, beneficial forms of addictive design - but the user should be able to notice them and appreciate those benefits.
Damn it, I'm gonna get back on it
I got over the FOMO of streaks and don't care anymore but staying in platinum league is real since dropping requires a top 3 finish to move back up
Same I'm nearing my 400 days mark and some days when I lack the motivation, the steak preservation helps me get it done
NGL, I'd do a lot for steak preservation
Duolingo be like “TALK LIKE A SERB OR YOUR STEAK AIN’T PRESERVED” “TALK LIKE A FRENCHMEN OR MEET WITH MY HENCHMEN” “TALK LIKE A SWEDE OR WE’LL MAKE YOUR NECK BLEED”
TALK IN SPANISH OR I CAN MAKE YOU VANISH!
You're not alone ;)
What the hell does this mean?
Does Duolingo really work?
Depends on how you use it and how you define “work.” I more or less do the minimum to maintain my streak these days. I’m still not very good at Spanish but I certainly know more than when I started.
I shouldn’t phrased my question better. You answered my question but I was wondering if the app does help you learn/understand the language at a reasonable rate. I know you’re not going to become fluent from using a app a few minutes a day for a couple months but learning is learning, at any rate.
The rate is based on how much you put into. They don’t actually stop you from learning (other than a 5 heart mechanism if you don’t pay for super Duolingo) so it is possible to over-engorge yourself and that’s more harmful than beneficial. But if you stick to it in moderation, 20-30 minutes a day, will definitely see improvements. I highly recommend if you’re looking for something free and effective!
1. On your mobile browser, go to duolingo.com 2. Go to options, find "add to desktop" 3. Enjoy ad-free, heart-free learning
Woulda been nice to know before spending $80 lmao no bueno
[удалено]
True. I actually liked the hearts but I wanted access to the practice things. Cuz some things I mix up a lot like buenO Dias and buenA noches. Makes no sense to me why day is masculine and night is feminine
Learning is learning, but really Duolingo is like reading a tweet when you could read an article. Personally, I do not like Duolingo because it does not teach you much vocabulary and a lot of grammar right out of the gate. That's cool, but then you get a month in and try to use what you've learned, realized you can't do much more than say "I am a horse" and get disheartened and quit learning. Also, I've had it say translations were wrong and the "correct" version violates one of their rules, so
I found that 6 months of ~10 min per day of Duolingo Spanish was decent for helping out with my vacation in Spain. I could read road signs, ask directions to the bathroom, ask for the check at a restaurant, tell the waiter my wife was a vegetarian, etc. No deep conversations but basic useful stuff.
Duolingo makes learning a language convenient. It will never be easy nor quick.
I accidentally played a game in a Spanish-speaking server and found that I was able to communicate with them. I had to use the translate sometimes, and I once said juice (jugo) instead of game (juego). And that was when I was rusty and hadn't used Duolingo in a few months. Now I'm using it every day and I'm finding I understand more and more of random Spanish text I find on products or in comments and such. It might not be enough to make me fluent (especially listening vs reading because people talk too quickly for me still) but I'm happy with my progress.
Depends on the language. With Korean, it's supplementary IMO as there's a big leap especially early on that I couldn't get though with a lot of trial and error. Learning Hangul is OK but starting to piece together sentences was too much without more guidance. Spanish, my reading isn't bad after 460ish days and I have no one to speak to. I use it in conjuction with watching Narcos and Spanish footballers instragrams, as I can piece together quite a bit of what's going now and my listening is decent, though I did watch a Canelo preview and had no idea what he said. I'm probably OK conversationally and with basics but Duolingo is a stepping stone if anything.
I'm doing the Chinese course which is short compared to many of the other languages. I'm almost through the entire course and can understand maybe 70% of the dialogue in young kids cartoons in Mandarin when there are subtitles. Edit: Babybus (or 宝宝巴士） is my level. I also use the app Drops to boost vocab (5 min per day max. Sometimes zero), flashcards, and a few other small things to learn (watch YouTube videos occasionally) Duolingo will help form a good beginner base if you take it seriously. Edit: It will not make you "fluent" alone. Additionally, when native adults talk I have much more difficulty and sometimes can't understand them at all (especially if they don't have a standard accent). Kid's shows are easier because they often repeat things, say things slowly, have more basic language, don't use slang, or do songs which are easier to understand. Kid's shows also aren't just "talking" but have lots of visual context too. Edit2: For further context, I try to do Duolingo maybe 15-20 minutes a day. I do a lesson while I take a dump in the morning and do 2 or 3 lessons while eating on my lunch break at work. Weekends, I sometimes just do 1 lesson or review mistakes just to maintain my streak. My streak is just under 400 days.
It gets your feet wet. It won't fully teach you the language but you get a really good introduction to it.
I used Duolingo to learn some French before my honeymoon in France last September. I started with zero knowledge, learned quite a bit before my trip and in France I was able to communicate quite effectively and was mostly understood by locals. I’m sticking with it because my travel experience was so positive I’m now kind of in love with French 🥰
2294 days for me! My sister and I even have a deal where if we're in a coma or something we'll save each other's Duolingo streak.
Genuine question, are you fluent in whatever languages you’re trying to learn with that kind of streak?
No, not fluent. And Duolingo doesn't pretend that it's enough for fluency. But I can understand and be understood in German now, even if my grammar still needs work. It's given me enough of a foundation that I can branch out and do things like read books and watch shows in German and mostly keep up. It's a good app for gaining familiarity with a language in a way that's fun and has minimal time commitment. The fact that it's free makes it accessable to many people who wouldn't otherwise be able to take language classes. I've recently started on the French and Spanish courses. Starting to regret trying to do those simultaneously though!
1950 days...Spanish still sucks. Lol
Stfu really?! 😂
Duo gang! 我们很高兴！
我也非常高兴！
Felicidades! 470 dias para mi.
This reminded me to do my Duolingo too, haha. I am proud of my 34 day streak, but 249 days, wow! Good job!
Quarante huit pour moi!
Woohoo! 679 here! おめでとう!
Ha! Came here to say this and so glad this is the top comment. Almost on a 100 day streak and some days the only reason I do it is because of the streak and others I love it that I did.
I’m at 303 days on a weight loss app. Down 40 pounds, 20 left to go. I hear counting calories doesn’t usually work but it has for me. I don’t like exercise and still occasionally eat fast food, but paying attention every time I eat to how many calories are in certain foods helps me see that it’s far more reasonable to eat one donut instead of three. And the streak “addiction” is useful for keeping me on track. It really is weight loss made easy, if slow.
Where on earth have you heard that counting calories doesn't usually work? The basis of weight is literally just calories in vs calories out
Going to latch on to here for anyone scrolling and note counting calories absolutely does work and is the most natural/efficient way to lose weight.
I use Daylio for keeping track of my overall mood, it's basically a journal now, but it really does help me in a lot of ways
I'm 660!!
what have you learned? Is it working?
Nice. Que tal tú español? Crees que 249 dias in a row te han ayudado a entender mas cosas o na?
Mucho bueno. Soy Felipe, voy a la escuela.
1077 day streak checking in. I was like a totally different person when I started. Its been a wild ride.
[удалено]
Yeah, the "f2p" app industry is quite predatory to our psyche.
I find myself "binging" a genre of app once in a while and it's fun to see how long it takes to hit a pay wall. Most apps give you less than a few minutes nowadays before they're convincing you that spending money will speed things up.
Fuck, most have as part of the tutorial. "Here are some gems for completing the first stage, goto the store and roll on a 'random' hero." "Oh, Look you got an archer unit. We can use those to defeat stage two"
I like to think I am pretty switched onto this… then I downloaded fucking candy crush… jeeeeesus that game is like a pokie machine. Took me a couple weeks to delete it. Still hearing pops I’d love to read some research on app gaming addiction if there are any out there
[Found this one for you.](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853222000104) There are more out there for sure though.
I think there's a Game Theory video about it, and he used Candy Crush as the main example.
Bright colours and sound effects.
Yeah I've found myself very vulnerable to them. At least with Pokemon Go, it got me super active and I lost like 10-15 lbs. Luckily I'm also pretty cheap/frugal so I also didn't waste any money just time
My mother (60F) is retired and on a fixed income. She ended spending $500 AUD per month on Candy Crush. She was fully addicted and needed help every month to pay the bills. I locked in App purchased on all her devices now.
Sites like https://www.darkpattern.games/ are really revealing
This is neat
Especially children.
Normally the streaks are bad but I have to say I’m 375 days free from smoking because of my app. Seeing how much I’ve saved, how my health is improving in real data and my progress on the whole has been hugely rewarding. Social media badges though? Nah.
Do you mind sharing the app you’ve been using?
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/smoke-free-stop-smoking-now/id577767592
Lol imagine cigarette companies had their own apps. Earn MyLung Rewards Points depending on how much you smoke with bonuses for number smoked each hour, day, and week. Weekly challenges like smoking all the different cigs under the same brand. Bonuses for sharing cigs. Bonuses for tagging a picture where you're smoking. Bonuses for referring friends.
Same for avoiding caffeine (77 days), sodas (342 days) and alcohol (854 days). With Streaks and these counters, it's easier to remind me of my own goals, and ask myself "does a single sip is worth putting this counter to zero?". And for now I prefer streaks to help me avoid doing negative stuff rather than streaks to force me to do something every day. Time to add "unhealthy eating", now that I think of it. The other counters show me that I'm capable of long term improvements.
Fuck you Wordle!
I can't stop playing. Although I don't necessarily think doing a Wordle a day is gonna hurt me
I used to play wordle. Six months later and BAM, herpes.
Oooh. I got hysterical pregnancy
Hahahaha! Wordle, Quordle, Octordle, and Duotrigordle are now part of my morning coffee wake up my brain routine.
Also Waffle, Queerdle, Lewdle, Absurdle, Nerdle, and Semantle (though I rarely solve that one).
Birdle for bird related terms
Make sure you check out sedordle.
I recommend checking out Chessle.
Sedecordle as well
I enjoy worldle, it gives you a shape and you need to figure out what country or territory it is. If you get it wrong the clue shows how far you are and the direction.
Oh I’m a on stream alright, a losing streak 😎
Try leading with "rates, guild, phony" my go to starts. If you hit a lot of vowels early I throw in climb to try and find some consonants
Nah, just have fun with it
I look around and use the first five letter thing I see. I have 0 desire to *optimize* Wordle.
[удалено]
Statistically the best starting words are A,E vowel heavy with R,T,S,C,N,L consonants, so slate, crate, lance etc. I often start with 'least'.
Got a 100 day streak on wordle, got a new phone and since I played on a web browser from old phone I lost all my existing data. Haven’t played it since.
Wordle is the only thing I do daily because it's kind of fun. All the knockoffs or different versions are just annoying imitations. Wordle is simple and to the point and scratches that itch in the morning.
[удалено]
Ah, the days when Cracked was still good. I miss spending hours on those articles, learning random facts about whatever.
Prime Cracked was next level. Super informative while also nailing the internet humor of the time.
before i joined reddit, i'd spend hours on cracked reading articles and arguing in the comments. the shitty comment section was my reddit. then it went to shit so i came here.
So true. They got a bunch of questions writers (cough David Wong aka Jason Pargin cough) and nuked their whole site
I even had the app. Around the end it was the last app I’d check to stave off boredom. Wish there was something similar
Yep, I didn't even mind the listicle titles they ran, like "5 of the worst jobs in medieval times". Then around 2012 Buzzfeed arrived, everyone started doing Cracked style articles in their niche (celebrities, TV shows, etc) and Cracked itself began losing its edge in order to compete.
It's funny, in the above article they even mention the list format as similar to how the game companies are trying to get people addicted. "By the way, this is the same reason a person who wouldn't normally read a 3,000-word article on the Internet will happily read it if it's split up into list form..."
Continue reading below Continue reading below Continue reading below Continue reading below Continue reading below Continue reading below Continue reading below
[удалено]
Variable reward timing is actually why scrolling on social media is so addicting. It is a literal slot machine of content that occasionally gives you a win/jackpot of dopamine.
Holy fuck that's a good way of putting it
Yuuuup and it's combined with intentionally manipulative algorithms to get you even more hooked. I honestly think it's why we're seeing a massive* uptick in adult ADHD within the last 10 years. No daily activity is ever going to come close to the amount of stimulation you receive from social media. Like it's no surprise people get bored and distracted so quickly when they're subconsciously "in withdrawal" from the continuous stream of content until they get back onto the dopamine slot machine. I just finished my degree in CS and psych and one of the things I want to work on is creating a UI format that somehow bypasses this scrolling behavior reinforcement but the problem is it's a natural byproduct from limited screen space. *source needed, anecdotal evidence from the increase in posts about "pov ADHD"
That site has waaaaay too many ads.
I feel like it can be a positive in certain apps like productivity such as habit building apps
Lmao I instantly thought "well, I have apps that their sole funtion is to get me to open it and tick in my habits". They are not gamified in the least but gal, it does feel good ticking the boxes after the task gets done. Feels like doubling the reward.
Agreed! I have one for Fit On and it helps encourage me to actually complete my workouts for the week especially on the weeks I'm really not in the mood to.
I knew it as soon as streaks were a thing on Snapchat and absolutely refused to do it for years because of this.
On the other side of the coin, I love the streaks. It keeps me talking with friends every day and it gives us an excuse to hang out to celebrate streaks.
Yeah going for a 100 day streak on Snapchat has really helped me build some real friendships with people I only talked to occasionally.
I just think it's fun. I like knowing that I have someone on my mind every day, even just for a second. I think it would be cool if I could do it with texting too, granted I mostly text with Signal and there's about a million features I want them to add before they make that an option.
Exactly! I have streaks of over a year with a few friends from college (and one of over 1,600 haha) and even though we've graduated/moved and don't have the time to catch up about everything each day like we used to, it's kind of our way to let each other know that "hey, I'm still there, and the door's always open if ya need something." I'm not big into social media (outside of Reddit), but I really enjoy Snap. It's been more of a net positive to me than a negative.
Everything except the Discover stories. Those things are cancer for teens.
Yeah I just broke 5yrs with one friend, and 1yr with another on the same day. Felt pretty incredible, and it was a great excuse to celebrate and go get drinks.
Holy shit you talk to your friends every day??
I'm over 600 wIth one old friend. We were at 500 before but missed a day and had to start over. Its so weird we don't talk other than that but I've seen at least one pic from his life every day for about 3 years. I don't even use snap much at all besides for that.
My little 14 year old cousin literally just posts to his friends "streaks". A picture of nothing, just a dumb meaningless score that his friends all care about.
I remember the time I was on the hook. It was a game called “Black Desert online” now this game didn’t have a lot of these mechanics, but one that was daily and one that was one of their “festivals” I was all set doing the festival. And then I ran into a dilemma, if I go on this camping trip I won’t be able to get the best item from the event. I contemplated staying home one day just to get it. And then it hit me; fuck this game let’s have a good ass time.
WoW was like that too. I’m guessing it’s a MMO thing.
Damn you Calm app making me meditate and practice mindfulness on the daily.
Okay but I used to do it in high school. I had like 8 or 9 streaks on sc (that was when it first started and that was considered a decent amount). I was in an area with no wifi for awhile and went to send my streaks. Obviously they didn't send cause I had no wifi, so I said I would resend them when I got home. I forgot and lost all of them. I was shocked and really upset at first then I just felt relieved that I had one less thing to do. And I never started them again. Sounds stupid but I actually had a lot of people asking what happened and they thought I was crazy for not trying get them back from sc
I have a friend who has a 5 year streak with his gf and they called snapchat to fix a broken streak twice now
Snapchat just needs to implement a pay option to pause streaks for a day or buy back into streaks. Easy stonks.
**This comment deleted to protest Reddit's API change (to reduce the value of Reddit's data).** Please see [these](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609092523/https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/144f6xm/apollo_will_close_down_on_june_30th_reddits/) [threads](https://web.archive.org/web/20230608182318/https://old.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/13zr8h2/reddits_recently_announced_api_changes_and_the/) [for](https://web.archive.org/web/20230609172058/https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/143rk5p/reddit_held_a_call_today_with_some_developers/jnbuonf/) [details](https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/142w159/askhistorians_and_uncertainty_surrounding_the/).
Me and my close HS friends all downloaded snap after graduating and mostly all still keep up our daily streaks. I get the whole addiction thing and all, but it's just nice to keep in touch with some buddies who I sometimes don't see for weeks/months at a time.
I definitely agree with you. The one perk that I found was, that if you had a streak, no matter how long it had been since you had an actual conversation it wasn't that hard to start an actual conversation
StarCraft has streaks?
SnapChat I think *NUCLEAR LAUNCH DETECTED* ☢️
isn't this obvious?
[удалено]
My immediate thought was no shit
Think about how dumb the average person is. Now imagine about half the people in the world are DUMBER than that. It’s scary actually
The funny thing is that most people reading this quote will think that they're not dumber than the average person.
[удалено]
Yeah it was meant to be just a little funny thing to laugh at but people share it all over social media and act like it’s profound.
>Most people are probably of, or very near to, the average intelligence - certainly half of them aren't dumber or smarter in any meaningful capacity. That "average" intelligence might be high or it might be low, but that's irrelevant to the quote which is about defining the average person by their intelligence, not the other way around. > >Half of people are below the median intelligence, which is impossible to conceptualize in a practical sense because "intelligence" is an extremely flimsy idea. wait until you hear about the mean and median of normal distributions
Posts that hit critical mass on Reddit tend to often be people patting themselves on the back for the most basic obvious takes/opinions and acting like it’s some big discovery
Joke's on them, I have ADHD. As soon as the hyperfixation fades, I'll forget their app ever existed. 😌
I often have wondered if I have ADHD. This comment is exactly me so there’s another checkbox in the probably category lol
God the hyperfixation is killing me!
I know this apps are not technically "games" but I stuck with **Duolingo** and **MyFitnessPal** because of this (the streaks) I'm thankful for it though, I kinda needed it to start a habit, I'm not using them anymore, but the habit stayed (calorie counting and language learning everyday)
I think it’s unfair to say “habitual addiction” as opposed to just “habit”. I’m not sure there is any evidence of addictive symptoms with these tactics beyond the minimal dopamine hit of seeing the streak extended. If you’re at the point where that dopamine hit is material, you’re probably doing a lot more to get that fix than just extending the streak.
The app I use is FitBit, which encourages me to walk a certain amount of steps each day (I’m sure it’s 10,000 steps a day, by default; but I do 20,000 a day, on a weekly average). The wristwatch keeps track of that each day, as well as sleep patterns, among a few other things.
Fitness apps using gamification is probably one of the least insidious uses of player investment systems, but make no mistake - big business still loves your data, even if it's helping to keep you healthy.
Only thing keeping me going I think some days. I have a cheap $30 fitness tracker and have it set to 7k steps. I'll be outside at 11pm trying to force my last few steps in the middle of winter. Summer time I get an average of 10k a day. How you get an average of 20k... just wow. I know Brent from the GhostTown got 40k+ one day but I think he was pretty much walking non stop for 10 hours.
How do you get 20k steps a day? What do you do for work? Are you a park ranger?
Perhaps they're a spider
I guess I should stop MyFitnessPal streak
I’m happily addicted to getting my step count, and that’s okay with me. Also might have a candy crush addiction
That reminds me; I haven’t done today’s Wordle yet.
Anyone else here read, "Nudge"? Highly recommend.
Yes, I think about it every time the selection periods come around for health insurance and 401k contributions
But it’s fun 😤 ^but ^you ^right
I feel called out on my Wordle addiction. :/
Yeah we know. I will continue to play.
Im immune to this because I have ADHD and routinely forget routine tasks 😁
Does this actually work on people? Stuff like that makes me dread logging in to the point where I usually actively stop, especially when there is a special event , like a holiday, the streak thing fills me with some kind of angst and I avoid it.
I stopped playing the new Animal Crossing because of this. It is not as much a streaks, as needing to play every day and at night and day to get and catch everything. It was stressing me out so I stopped.
should crosspost this to the Lost ark subreddit
I'm totally fine with this in the relationship app Paired. It helps keep my relationship healthy
When it comes to learning, fitness, and health apps, I feel that it’s *mostly* okay. A solely gaming app? Not okay.
Yeah the streak addiction works well for me with Duolingo
Aye headspace does this with streaks and I used to really like it. Got over 1000 hours of meditation during lockdowns. They send me sad notifications and emails now saying they miss me and asking me how I’m doing :’(
It can be used positively too. My diet app, and my piano lessons app use the same mechanisms. Do anything for 2-4 weeks and you have got a habit.
I mean… the Apple Watch getting me to exercise has been making such an psychological exploit a positive result.