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Comment by dataengineer56 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if any of these studies distinguish between people who use screentime more productively. I use my phone on a morning for Duolingo and logging my workouts. That's quite different to doomscrolling, but I still wonder if it's good or bad.

There's also the category of people who stew infront of a TV all day - it's unsurprising that these people will have lower cognitive functions, but is that because they don't have the drive or ambition to do anything else? Is that comparable to someone who comes back from work tired and watches 3 hours of Netflix while doomscrolling?

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Duolingo has just as many smart people working on making its app addictive as anybody else.

I would think more?! It would be my first example of something horrifically gamified etc.

I suppose it's just the worst I'll put up with / I don't generally use those kinds of apps, but if that can seem like nothing to people...

I imagine, like most things, it's on a spectrum. No screen (for the first hour of the day) is probably better than Duolingo, which is better than doomscrolling. I also imagine it varies between people. I can get overstimulated by screen use, so I feel much better if I don't use it for the first and last hours of the day, but I'm not always good at keeping to that rule!

> I use my phone on a morning for Duolingo

Duolingo is extremely passive. you're not learning a language, you're learning how to answer correctly on an app.

It's a lot more time efficient to do exercises from a grammar. But... It doesn't feel as good. Which is exactly the point.

I think that there are a lot of issues with the way Duolingo motives people through unhealthy incentives, but research does show that it works. Though it will need to be used in conjunction with other methods of learning to be truly helpful. But then, why would you learn a language if you’re not going to actively use it?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379288394_The_Effec...

No, research doesn't show that it works.

That research you link has been conducted by Xiangying Jiang and Bozena Pajak (first and last authors). If you want to contact them about how totally objective and unbiased they are, here are their emails:

xiangying@duolingo.com bozena@duolingo.com

Don't forget the second author, ryanpeters@duolingo.com!

There's a subreddit for this, it's r/MurderedByWords

Touché!

> Though it will need to be used in conjunction with other methods of learning to be truly helpful.

This reminded me of that story by Feynman where he meets a painter that claims we can make orange paint with just red and white.

That's too dismissive in my view. Duolingo isn't as good as in-person lessons, but it's still way better than nothing. I'd also argue that grammar exercises are cripplingly boring for most people, so if the choice is not learning or grammar exercises they'd choose not learning, which is worse. I'd also argue that you're only talking strictly about learning language in the most efficient way, but missing out on the fact that if you can make it fun, the enjoyment in itself is a valid reason for doing something.

> Duolingo isn't as good as in-person lessons, but it's still way better than nothing

I disagree. Duolingo makes you feel that you are being productive and you are learning (when you actually don't).

That is worse than nothing, because when you do nothing you know you are being indulgent, will feel bad about it, and react.

Duolingo is like a candy wrapped in package that says "this is a healthy vegetable".

Learning fast is fun to me.

Edit: yes, I am dismissive because I've tried it and seen that its obviously a scam, in the sense that it's sold as a fun way of learning but it's actually just a fun way of not learning.

I think all the activities mentioned stimulate the little dopamine rushes; Duolingo and workout loggers both gamify progress, where getting the points or progression in those apps is more important than what they're intended to quantify. Doomscrolling will get you the dopamine rush of the various emotional ups and downs it provides.

I mean I'm guilty as well, I often browse reddit mindlessly, often r/all which opens up the floodgates (although it's not really 'all' anymore, it used to include porn as well and subreddits can opt-out I believe).

> workout loggers both gamify progress

I agree but I just find it too useful to be able to see what my workout is going to be and what I did last time, as well as my progress on different exercises. The alternative would be printing out my workout app before each workout, filling it in with pen and paper and then inputting it back into the app later. I'd love an alternative.

My Suunto sport watch logs the workout and automatically syncs to the phone. You could get your work tracked and avoid screen time that way.

It sounds like you're using the phone for a workout plan though... Nothing is perfect

Yeh it's weightlifting not cardio so I need to see specific lifts and my history with them, as well as being able to switch out exercises depending on how I'm feeling/how much time I have.

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