When Gamification Goes Awry
Writing days, health rings, Duolingo… there are more streaks than time.
Today is the first day of October and Q4. If almost every app is to be believed, today is a good day for a fresh start of, well, everything.
Just about every app has a streak feature. LinkedIn followed Apple News and the New York Times into the daily game market. Keeping that game streak alive ensures you return to the app daily. The companies get their Daily Active User count to grow and addict you to looking at targeted ads. These streaks are gamification features that make using the app daily fun.
At least, that’s the intent.
I started a Duolingo Japanese streak almost 200 days ago:
I downloaded Duolingo with a goal in mind: hit a year-long streak and have a toddler’s vocabulary next year when I return to Japan.
That was a few months ago. I still want to achieve the goal, but I’m getting sick of maintaining the streak.
Duolingo has two forms of gamification: the streak and the leaderboard. The streak is a simple count of the continuous days with completed lessons. The leaderboard is based on experience gains from completed lessons this week.
