The pleasure and pain of streaks
Don't let them define you
I recently had the pleasure of achieving a 365-day streak of learning Portuguese in the Duolingo app. I’m proud of learning everyday, gaining some basic utility with this beautiful language. But now, I’m bracing for the psychic pain that Duolingo is about to cause me. How did we get to this state of affairs?
Gamification at play
We used to talk a lot in healthtech product design circles about “gamification,” which involves applying game-playing mechanics to drive behavior change. In healthtech, such behavior change is intended to promote healthy outcomes and instill good habits, like walking every day, or managing our A1C levels, or taking medications as prescribed.
Gamification leverages our understanding of human psychology: humans like to be rewarded for our efforts, and many of us are motivated by competition and comparisons with others. Often-used gamification techniques include rewarding people for completing tasks; publicizing scores on a shared leaderboard; and encouraging consistent engagement over time by tracking streaks. These mechanisms are extrinsic motivators: they exist outside of the individual’s psyche, providing an external motivational factor to drive the behavior change in question.
While I was drafting this post, in the “serendiptity” / “zeitgeist” department a post by Substack writer
went big, titled “Why Everything is Becoming a Game.” He does a great job introducing B. F. Skinner’s work in behavioral science that helped lead to the prevalence of gamification techniques across digital culture. Gurwinder also writes:It all seemed so simple: if we could only create the right games, we could make humanity fitter, greener, kinder, smarter. We could repopulate forests and even cure cancers simply by making it fun.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, gamification took a less wholesome route.
We humans are harder to manipulate than pigeons, but we can be manipulated in many more ways, because we have a wider spectrum of needs. Pigeons don’t care much about respect, but for us it’s a primary reinforcer, to such an extent that we can be made to desire arbitrary sounds that become associated with it, like praise and applause.
Respect is so important to humans that it’s a key reason we evolved to play games.
Game-playing mechanics are everywhere now in digital experiences because they work: they can modify human behavior. Gurwinder reaches the powerful conclusion that gamification is the ultimate social trap of a capitalist world. Happily, he doesn’t also conclude that it’s “game over” for us — he provides five tips for making good choices when it comes to engaging with digital culture’s myriad games. (Def read the post if you haven’t.)
Example streak handling
Let’s look at how a couple other apps use the game mechanism of streaks in a decent, helpful way. Then let’s see what Duolingo does….
Wordle is direct
I’m a Wordle nut, playing almost every day since before NYT bought the game. I try to do it over breakfast but of course it can slip my mind. Wordle gives streak info in two ways, per the screenshots below.
Although breaking a streak hurts on some level, I can just pick right back up. There’s no blame or other consequence provided besides the reset “Current Streak” count. They also present the supportive “Max Streak” count right alongside it, so I can feel good about my prior achievement.
Insight Timer is nuanced
As a regular meditator, I truly love this app. (If you would like me to do an in-depth review of its many fine features, please comment!) In support of one’s individual practice, it captures a variety of “Stats” on one’s private account page.
Honestly, I’m not sure what the different color of stars signify. What I appreciate is that one’s current streak is a top-order achievement presented at the same level as the “Days with at least 1 session” achievement, which is a cumulative measure over time. Streaks are defined as “[n] Consecutive Days”, and they stack up: an initial 10-day streak is rewarded, and then a 20-day streak gets rewarded too, etc. And, like Wordle, the system doesn’t penalize you whatsoever when a streak stops; it simply begins a new “Consecutive Days” count.
Duolingo is borderline sociopathic
The Duolingo app is justifiably famous for its effective use of gamification techniques to drive engagement and retention, making it a runaway success in the market and a case study for Product people. Its animated owl mascot, Duo, get tremendously excited for you every day you complete a lesson. On the other hand, if you haven’t used the app on a given day, it pops up with semi-menacing notifications from its internal characters, like this screenshot below.
Duolingo imbues every step of the experience with rewards and applause, and has a multi-leveled, social leaderboard. And it’s all about those streaks. It reinforces them constantly, and even advertises people’s year+ streaks on the leaderboard.
The chilling reality facing me is that thanks to a post on LinkedIn, I’m now aware of how it will behave when my streak ends. Duo will recriminate me as follows:
"You made Duo sad."
"You made Duo angry."
"How do you say quitter?"
"It's been 5 days."
They will attempt to shame me into complying with their agenda. The happy owl will turn on me, its smiles and confetti turning into scowls and tears. Seriously, this twist of the knife is positively pathological.
Freeing realization
A few years ago in the midst of the pandemic, I realized that I was excessively caught up in keeping my streak in the Insight Timer app. I would beat myself up when I broke a streak for whatever reason. More than once, I’d be drifting off to sleep at night when I’d suddenly remember I hadn’t done a session and I’d sit up in a near panic.
Eventually, I remembered the words of a wise meditation teacher, who said: “Any meditation is better than no meditation.” I realized that I had to let go of my attachment to maintaining streaks because it was causing suffering. It wasn’t wise to hold tight to this external achievement if it didn’t help my wellbeing. I needed to accept the intrinsic worthiness of my effort, whatever it was on any given day, and let go of trying to grab that golden ring. Ultimately, I have agency: I don’t have to play the game solely on the terms presented to me.
Gurwinder reaches the same hopeful conclusion in his post, writing:
Skinner’s pigeons only kept pecking the button because they were trapped in a cage — they had nothing else to do. But you are still free. Even in a world where everything is a game, you don’t have to play by other people’s rules; you have a wide open world to create your own.
Your move.
How to handle the streak game
So: sorry Duolingo, I’ve already decided I won’t bend over backwards to maintain my streak. But I’m honestly dreading what it’ll be saying and displaying to me soon. Why would any company decide this was an appropriate way to act towards its (most devoted!) customers? Get a grip, Duolingo!
If you’re in charge of designing experiences, please consider the following guidance when applying the game mechanic of streaks:
Never, ever direct shame or negative emotions at a person who loses their streak. Study trauma-informed design and positive psychology to avoid doing harm. As an extrinsic and positive motivator, the streak game mechanic should never be flipped into becoming something personally demeaning.
Celebrate an ongoing streak, but keep it a private matter between the system and the user so that respect for oneself in a group is never at play. As Gurwinder points out, for humans, maintaining the respect of a group is too important to mess around with.
Employ a multi-level approach like Insight Timer, which celebrates consecutive days and builds up sets of consecutive-day achievements. This design pattern allows any streak length to be equally rewarded. Accompany the basic streak statistic with another type of stat (such as cumulative achievements) to celebrate people’s hard work in all its forms.
And to any person who may or may not be on a streak of some kind, please remember to be compassionate with yourself along the way. Enjoy streaks while they’re happening, yet be sure to forgive yourself completely if the streak is broken for whatever reason. The most important thing is feeling intrinsically good about your efforts. No statistic defines your value in the world. You really are free to choose your next best action.
Hey hey, I’m Lizz Bacon. I run a boutique consultancy called Devise, and I know how to build great solutions. I’m sharing product and design knowledge from my decades in healthtech, as well as heart-centered insights to help us sustain our souls at work (and beyond). Let’s make the world a better place together! Please subscribe, share, comment — and maybe you’d like to grab time to chat?