I have a 800+ streak, so my icon used to always be orange. It didn’t even change when it “got sick” for everyone last year. Now they seem to have removed that feature and it “gets angry” if it’s past 22.00 and I haven’t done an exercise yet. Which is what I very often do.

    • Nighed@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      It forces gamification and external motivation.

      Internal motivation is much stronger but gets ‘defeated’ by external motivation.

      Gets me every time, I wish there was a way to turn off all the extra shit, then I might actually learn something.

    • madjo@feddit.nl
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      2 months ago

      I have a similar gripe with Brilliant. “Do your exercises now in order to keep your streak and to defend your place in this stupid league that means nothing”.
      And you get notifications of this every few hours in both your phone’s notifications as well as in your email. Stop bothering me!

      I once did a streak based walking routine, it became so stressful that walking stopped being fun and became a chore to check off. At 1000 times I forced myself to quit that app.

    • roofuskit@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      My library offers free access to Mango. I recommend everyone check the services offered by their library.

    • rhythmisaprancer@moist.catsweat.com
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      2 months ago

      This is frustrating to read. I used Duolingo over ten years ago, and was going to use it again to get back into some things, but now what? It seems that it is not what I remember it being. I only used it on a computer, and probably would now.

  • Peter_Arbeitsloser@feddit.org
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    2 months ago

    Disable automatic updates in the play store. I have them dissbled for all my apps to have better control over what is pushed upon me. I noticed that also stops the Duo icon to change when I was slacking off.

  • jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
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    2 months ago

    Nice work. I also share this gripe, it seems the people at Duolingo are biased in thinking that getting started early is better, which is not true at all. I wish they removed the angry icons and replaced them with ones that weren’t so biased.

    Like this, but with the kinky green owl:

    *I think there is a setting in the app that turns off changing icons entirely. Can’t find it rn tho…

    • Flax@feddit.uk
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      2 months ago

      Duolingo has me caught hook, line and sinker. At first I installed it to see what the fuss was about. Then I got a notification about starting a streak. Thought I’d do it again. Did it for three days and gave up. Then I started getting “streak freezes” added. Next thing I know I was on 7 days. Then two weeks. Then a month. Then six. Then a year. Now two. I cannot bring myself to remove the app or break the streak.

      On the flip side, the language that I’m learning really is a language that I actually should be actively learning (probably more than just Duolingo). But the app has defeated the part of me that would never be bothered to. Sometimes I enjoy it and do a few lessons. But even if I’m lazy, it still makes me do a bare minimum refresher. So I’d actually recommend it if you need to learn a language properly. It really does keep you sunk in during your low periods.

      Although many suggest using it only as a supplement (although I can still say basic phrases with what I’ve learned and I’m happy with my progression in it)