Microprocessing
Duolingo Needs to Chill
Enough with the passive-aggressive notifications, Duo
A few months before I went on a much-needed vacation to Mexico City in 2018, I tried Duolingo, the ubiquitous language-learning app, to gently push my Spanish skills into something resembling respectability. But I generally dislike phone games, which meant I didn’t love the app, which gamifies language education through exercises and achievements. I fell off, as many of us fledgling second-language learners do.
Duolingo did not take it well. After ignoring the app’s rude emails (“Learning Spanish requires daily practice. Practice now?” “We haven’t seen you in a while.” “Keep Duo happy!”) and failing to log into the game for about a month, the app sent me one last, passive-aggressive-as-hell notification.
“These reminders don’t seem to be working. We’ll stop sending them for now.”
Well, jeez. I made that little green owl cry. I failed at making myself into a more educated citizen and traveler and didn’t even respond to Duo the Multilingual Owl’s attempts to get me back in the game. It legitimately made me feel kind of…
