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iandanforth

Streaks are often self-defeating. A few samples from the duolingo forums where this comes up frequently:

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/17598950/The-demotivation...

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/3705144/Streak-Breaker-Wh...

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/7927344/Lost-streak-and-m...

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As some one who had lot of bad habits, using stream method really helped me. I will give you an example.

Smoking - I used to smoke a pack a day since I was 21. 5 years ago I decided to quit. I started a stop watch on my wrist watch to count number of hours since last smoke. Once that went up 250 hours, I used a wall calendar to mark of days. I tend to break the stream couple of times a year by smoking socially. But when I see my wall calendar, I always get back to maintaining the streak. I have not quit the habit, but I went from going a pack per day to 2 packs per year, which health wise is good enough. Having said that, I found that having a wall calendar, bigger the better, really helps. Apps with notifications etc not so much. I am currently working on an app which turns your android wall paper into a streak tracker, will of course post on HN when ready.

A wall calendar helped me as well with a meditation habit. My longest streak was 100+ days of at least 20mins sitting. I tried with apps later on, but nothing matches a huge calendar and marking the box with a big X.

I'm glad to hear someone else had the same experience. I wonder what it is that causes one to work better than the other...

I think wall calendar is always there. I have it in my bedroom, so I see pretty much first thing when I wake up and last thing when I sleep. App - you have to look for it and it is constantly in your face, so to say.

It's still somewhat dependent on the person. I tried the wall calendar and even large whiteboard in my room to track streaks and habits, and then discovered my brain has repurposed its internal adblock to remove these habit trackers from my conscious attention. :/. I have the same problem with TODO lists, so I have to switch the way I track tasks every couple weeks.

I had a several hundred day streak on duolingo, lost it and haven't opened the app since. Why would I, all my hard work is lost? I didn't actively think about it until I saw this.

Sounds like poor streak design if it never lets you miss a day. Kind of tragic that they'd impose that on humans.

They have streak freeze now. Not sure if it’s because I’m a premium subscriber or not, but it keeps my streak going if I miss a day but come back.

I think they realized streak breaking is a serious problem for people (that people only discover when they're about to break it; I can confirm my wife had this very situation with Duolingo) - and figured out they can make money off it. AFAIK, freezing streaks is tied to in-app purchases somehow, or otherwise burns some gems or points you can replenish with money.

My own experience in trying maintaining chains of habits confirms it too - once I slipped on a longer streak, I immediately thought "screw this, I'm not doing this anymore" - because my mental set point moved from "doing something" to "I need to do a streak at least as long as the previous one, and man, how long will that take...".

Streak freezing things can be purches with their in-app currency "gems", which can be obtained without paying. Not even sure if you can buy them. I have so much more of these than I'd ever need, just because you can do barely anything with them

Would your streak ever have gotten to several hundred days long if the streak mechanic didn't exist? Gamification is about both the carrot and the stick. The stick can certainly be demotivating in the wrong situations, but it also has plenty of motivational force. I have felt the sting of losing a 3 digit day streak too. The Apple Watch is even more unforgiving in that regard than Duolingo. The first time it happened to me it sent me into a week plus of totally ignoring the goals because of what I "lost". What got me out of that funk was revisiting the whole purpose of why I started with fitness gamification. I wasn't trying to get a number on my watch to increment 1 every 24 hours. Who cares about that? I was trying to get healthier. So I got to work on another streak. Sometimes I lose it due to some extenuating circumstances like being sick, getting injured, or having some all day social event and there is occasionally a hangover before I can back into the swing of things with another streak. However there are also days in which I get home at the end of the day, I didn't work out at all, and my choice is to either veg out on the couch for an hour or workout to continue my streak. As long as there are more days like that than days I sulk over a lost streak, I come out ahead.

TL;DR - Your hard work wasn't lost. Your knowledge of that language didn't disappear when that streak ended. You just forgot why you downloaded Duolingo in the first place.

Perhaps something like a "moving average" would be better to motivate people to keep things going without creating an expectations bubble.

"You did great for the past 4 weeks - perfect streak" or "you are doing really well - only missed one day in the past 4 weeks". You know, something a human might say.

Start off with a x Days, then switch to x Weeks and then moving average.

A moving average is an amazing idea. I'm gonna mess with that idea today for my work tasks.

I don't understand how you think your hard work is lost?

It is only lost in Duolingo but you have learned some of the language (I am assuming here).

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