Note: I wrote this list narrative for a school assignment, but I thought I would post it on this sub just for fun. Also, I posted the rough version a few weeks back, so this is not a repost. Enjoy :)
My Addiction to Learning Spanish Duolingo
- It lasted 800 days in a row. 19,000 hours, 1.1 million minutes, and more than two years? It certainly didn’t feel that long at the time, and it still doesn’t when I look back on those days. I guess the concept of time becomes peripheral when you become addicted. I mean, sure, at first, I found it to be fun, but it eventually turned out to be a hassle. It was one of those special types of burdens that I was unable to put an end to, but, ironically, one that I was also perpetuating daily. It all started five years ago on a Thursday afternoon in September...
- For a lot of my classmates, the teacher leading us to the computer lab once a week was just a chance to play computer games during school. My 8th grade Spanish teacher, who I shall call Mrs. B-A, often had trouble managing the rowdy class. However, she very much favored me. I was usually on task and not distracted by the temptations of a computer, a rare quality for middle schoolers, I suppose.
- Maybe it was this admiration she had in me that motivated me to start a Duolingo streak. Or maybe it was because she gave prizes to the top three students that had the most points for the week. Talkis, Doritos, candy bars, popcorn…you name it, and each week I received it.
- One Thursday in the computer lab, when I would usually pick out my prize, my hands were covered in so much Cheeto dust that I remember having to make a conscious effort to designate one hand for typing and clicking and the other for eating so as not to make the keyboard all messy. I could have gone to the bathroom to wash them off, but I was aware that the time it would take to do that would just take time away from my Duolingo. Maybe this was a sign that I was becoming addicted, not to learning Spanish, but to keeping my streak.
- I still don’t think I ever got enough of that effervescent “da-ding” sound that filled my ears with ecstasy whenever I correctly completed an exercise. Or of the sound at the end of a series of exercises that would ring out triumphantly, as if I had just won gold in the Olympics. Maybe it was because of those whimsical sounds that I was attached. But having treats thrown at me for learning a new language? Why would I stop?
- Fast forward a year, and I was in 9th grade. My Duolingo streak that I worked on every day to keep alive was around 300 days at that point. I had recently had a few close calls of not remembering to complete my daily goal before midnight, so I needed to come up with a better strategy so that I wouldn’t lose it. There was no way I could let myself lose that streak. No. No way in hell, I would tell myself.
- At that point, having my streak reset to zero would mean losing almost a year’s worth of effort. It would mean losing part of my identity. I had devoted so much consistent work to reach such an impressive milestone. Maybe I just didn’t want the streak to end because I couldn’t help but feel more and more excited each day that my streak extended. Every time I watched the orange meter spin around and around like some sort of hypnotic spiral, it further induced my addiction to the app.
- My friends thought I was a special type of weird for maintaining such a long Duolingo streak, or really, for having one at all. However, I took pride in blasting my phone volume every time I was doing Duolingo around them because I knew it annoyed them. My favorite part was telling them how long my streak had gotten. One of them would usually ask each week, probably because they were waiting for the day that it would end. I choose to believe that they were just secretly impressed with how devoted I could get to something. Devoted or… addicted, I honestly didn’t know my motivation at that point.
- This is the part where I should probably admit that it did get a little out of hand. I was now in 10th grade, and the free time I had after school was more limited than in past years. I started to do Duolingo during lunch, but I was often too busy interacting with my friends to remember to do it. Instead, I did it during silent reading in English, surreptitiously angling the book cover just right, rendering my teacher oblivious to what I was up to. I did it during computer programming while the instructor was on the other side of the room. Heck, I even did it during PE class in the locker room while changing into my PE uniform because I knew I had to be efficient with my time. That, or I was just obsessed with keeping my streak alive.
- It’s kind of funny though, looking back. Most of my classmates, when sneaking their phone, would be aggressively tapping away, launching intense virtual battles against their friend on the other side of the room while playing games like “Clash Royale”. Others would be making funny faces at their phones, trying to get the most hilarious pic possible using the latest Snapchat filter. However, I joined this party of sneakers to learn a new language. Because of this distinction, I could justify what I was doing, and that only further emboldened my addiction to the app.
- Finally though, near the end of January of 2019, it all ended. I was on a trip to Disneyland with my school band, and I was having so much fun with my friends (endless Splash Mountain rides) that I forgot all about Duolingo. Poof. The next day, my streak of almost 800 days was wiped clean, all the way down to 0.
- At first, I thought there had been a mistake because I swore I had bought a “streak freeze”, which freezes your streak for one day with no activity. However, I realized that I had forgotten to buy one for that particular day. I saw the lifeless, greyed-out zero that had taken over the three-digit number that was once proudly displayed in a fiery orange font across the top, and I honestly didn’t know what to do. All I could do was stare at it over and over again as if the number would magically revert by the mere power of suggestion.
- My desperation at getting my streak back became so apparent that I even made a last-ditch effort and filled out a bug report on Duolingo’s website…I never did hear back. I knew I wasn’t going to start a new streak because I was well aware that it would take over two years to build back everything that I had lost. That thought now signals to me that at that point, I had just been doing Duolingo for the sole purpose of maintaining my streak, and that’s it. It wasn’t to learn Spanish, or because it was assigned for homework, and it wasn’t even because of the superb sound effects that it offered. It was solely because I was addicted to extending my streak each day.
- Eventually, I did come to terms with losing my streak, and something that helped me let it go was knowing that I had lost my streak while having too much fun at the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’. So, thank goodness I didn’t lose it because I was bogged down with chemistry homework or something lame like that. I swear I might not be over it to this day had that been the case.
- I must acknowledge that Duolingo did help me learn Spanish though. I always breezed through my Spanish classes in high school, and I don’t think I could say the same had I not used the app for seven hundred-something days straight. I can also have a decent conversation with a native in Spanish (though I think that has more to do with my classes than with Duolingo, but the app still really helped me in the learning process, especially with vocabulary). Learning a new language is such a fascinating experience, and I wish I had never gotten attached to the whole streak idea because it’s clear that the early excitement of learning a new language had become completely overshadowed by the importance I placed on maintaining a streak.
- This whole experience taught me an important lesson: Consistency is not paramount in the learning process; far more is gained if the journey never ceases to be exciting and enjoyable. I have expanded this idea to some of my other goals in life, and I avoid keeping a streak of anything these days. Being rather spontaneous has made me feel so free, and this newly discovered autonomy is something I wish I knew just a few years back.
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