want to actually learn.
And with Duolingo, we’ve been able to do this. And at th
want to actually learn.
And with Duolingo, we’ve been able to do this. And at the highest level, the way we’ve done this is by making the broccoli taste like dessert. I’ll say it another way. What we’ve done is that we’ve used the same psychological techniques that apps like Instagram, TikTok or mobile games use to keep people engaged, but in this case, we use them to keep people engaged but with education. Let me give you some examples of these techniques.
One of the most powerful ones is the notion of a streak. What a streak is, is it’s just a counter that measures the number of days that you’ve used the product consecutively. You just take that number, you put it very prominently in your product and then people come back every day. And the reason people come back every day is because, well, if they don’t come back, that number resets to zero and people don’t want to lose their streak. It works. Now, on the one side, streaks have been criticized for, for example, getting teens addicted to Snapchat. But in the case of an educational app, streaks get people to come back to study every day.
Now, to give you an idea of the power of streaks, in the case of Duolingo, we have over three million daily active users that have a streak longer than 365. That means they…
I haven’t missed a day in the last year or longer. Fun fact: Japan has the longest average streaks for an educational app, while Latin America has the shortest-ever streaks. But we’re fun, hey, we’re fun!
Another important mechanism to get people to come back to your product are notifications. In the case of an educational product like Duolingo, people actually want to be reminded to learn. Duolingo has a sophisticated AI system that chooses when to send notifications and what to say in each notification to maximize the probability of user engagement. Interestingly, the algorithm for choosing the best time to send a notification is pretty simple: 24 hours after the user last used the product. This is because if someone was free yesterday at 3pm, they are likely free today at 3pm as well.
With notifications, it’s important not to spam users. Duolingo stops sending notifications after seven days of inactivity. However, the team realized that they should let users know when notifications are being stopped. This passive-aggressive notification has proven to be effective in getting users to come back. It’s funny how our green owl mascot has become the subject of memes on the internet, symbolizing the great lengths Duolingo will go to get people to learn a language.
By using the techniques that mobile games and social media use to engage users, Duolingo has managed to make language learning appealing. While educational apps may not be as engaging as platforms like TikTok or Instagram, they provide meaning and value to users. This internal motivation, combined with the techniques used by social media apps, can lead to millions of people using educational products like Duolingo. In fact, there are more people learning languages on Duolingo in the United States than in all US high schools combined.
The hope is that this approach can be applied to other subjects, such as math. Subjects that require repetition can be gamified and made fun, just like Duolingo. However, subjects that require explanations may need the support of high-quality videos, as Sal Khan is doing with Khan Academy. The ultimate goal is to deliver high-quality education to everyone, regardless of their socio-economic status, using mobile phones.
To conclude, please do your language lessons today. Thank you!