Over the last few weeks, I haven’t really felt like writing much. I got sick for the first time in a long time with what was probably the flu, in fact my entire household was hit pretty hard, and it was a pretty trying time for everyone in the home then. When I wasn’t sick, I was working, and when I wasn’t working, I was being a parent to the best capacity as I could.
The kids are going to bed, regardless of if they actually go to sleep or not immediately, at anywhere from 7:30-8 pm, so among the numerous adaptations of life as a parent, is coming to the grips that I have even less time to myself on a daily basis, especially factoring in the daily resetting of the home that apparently I’m the only one who gives a fuck about, cleaning and preparation for the following day.
So in like the two hours I might actually have every single day, writing hasn’t exactly been a high priority for me, despite being one of the only activities that actually means something to me. It’s just that I’m neurotic, and I want to have something to write about, and time and peace to do it, and it’s not been often where all the conditions have been ideal to actually do any writing. In fact, writing this right now isn’t entirely idea, but I’ve crossed into that realm of feeling obligated to write something because I don’t like to have too lengthy gaps in my posting onto a brog that nobody reads.
Among the few things that I have been doing in those miniscule 2~ hours a day I have, has been a lot of Duolingo, continuing on my self-pursuit to improve mi español. I take solace in the fact that it’s actually something productive, and not just spending all my free time playing Fire Emblem Heroes, Pokémon GO, or any of the Solitaire games that I’ve been burning a lot of free time on the last few months.
It’s a cleverly developed app and I genuinely feel like I am progressing a lot in the short time that I’ve been doing it, and there’s a clear difference in when you’re learning a language as a school requirement, versus learning a language because I want to learn it, for ultimately, practical purposes. The social aspect of it is nice, and I understand the power of doing an activity together, and I like having friend streaks with actual people I know, and it’s nice knowing that others are also trying to improve their linguistic acumen same as I am.
But I have to say, one of the things that I think kind of works counter culture to the generally well-considered ideals and modus operandi of the app is the whole league system, pitting users all around the world against each other, in a rat race of accumulating XP, regardless of the actual knowledge gained by everyone.
I know that there’s power in motivating people by sizing themselves up against peers, but I find it to be a flawed system that I think might work against the actual growth of users, but typing all this out, I’m beginning to wonder if that that’s kind of the point, and for a company that probably relies on users to shell out money for subscriptions, I suppose it’s a clever mechanic to ensure that users continue to use the product after all.
But what I’m getting at is that it definitely triggers the competitive nature in me, but I’m also not blind to the fact that sometimes when I’m feeling extra competitive, or I see the tryhard in the rankings above me is within striking distance, I’ll be tempted to do as many lessons and modules as I can in a short amount of time to beat the clock at the end of the week’s rankings. Admittedly, I’m probably not actually learning as much when I’m doing such, because I’m just trying to farm XP versus actually taking the time to read and learn and absorb as I really should be doing at this infant stage of mi journey de español.
And the worst part about the rankings is that I think I’m doing good, with like 3,000 XP in a week, but then there’s like 1-2 mega tryhards who have completely doubled me up, that I’ll never catch up to in a short amount of time. I’m wondering if they’re bots, or they’re actual people, and sometimes out of curiosity, I’ll click on their names to see what they’re doing, and ten times out of ten, these are users who are signed up for multiple modules, and basically farming 2-3 times the XP as users like me who are doing a single course can possibly accumulate.
Undoubtedly, these cocksuckers are abusing the system by most likely doing their native tongue on top of something that they’re trying to learn, because I’ll see these tryhards like Amelie doing English and French or Ludvig doing English and German and Ronaldo doing English and Portuguese, and I’m like wtf. And then there are some ultra tryhards who are doing bullshit courses like music theory and basic math to further farm up their XP numbers, and I’m just like fuck this.
I think Duolingo needs to adjust their categories to account for number of courses enrolled in, or better yet, eliminating the whole ranking system outright. I mean they have their reasons that I’ve probably surmised for creating a little bit of chaos, but too much chaos could ultimately alienate and chase off users too.
But I dislike that I’m clearly a sucker for the ranking system, as I have yet to fail to be promoted to the ensuing tier in just the month that I’ve been doing this. But holistically, when I get all ranking-obsessed, I probably am not learning and absorbing as much as I probably was when I had started using the app in my original first few days, and that, is not necessarily a good thing for my desired comprehension.
