How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media

Hello, I come from Guatemala. I want to clarify that Guatemala is not where they keep prisoners; that's Guantanamo. Guatemala is located below Mexico. For Americans, you can think of it as Mexico's Mexico. It's a smaller and poorer country, but it has better Mexican food. Education is often seen as a tool for equality, but in reality, it can perpetuate inequality.

I was fortunate to receive a good education despite not coming from a wealthy background. This allowed me to pursue higher education and eventually create a platform for equal access to education.

I started by focusing on teaching foreign languages, particularly English, as it has a wide audience and can significantly improve income potential. We decided that teaching languages through a mobile app was the best way to reach a large number of people, as most of the world's population has access to smartphones. This led to the creation of Duolingo, which operates on a freemium model, allowing everyone to learn without payment, but with occasional ads.

If you prefer to avoid ads, you can choose to subscribe and turn them off. The majority of Duolingo's revenue comes from subscribers who pay to remove ads, mostly from wealthier countries like the US and Canada. On the other hand, users from less affluent countries like Brazil, Vietnam, and Guatemala often use the free version.

This model allows for a form of wealth redistribution, where those who can afford it support education for everyone. Despite the potential of smartphones to reach a wide audience, they also present a challenge due to the addictive nature of apps like TikTok and Instagram.

To make education appealing, Duolingo uses psychological techniques similar to those used by social media and mobile games. For instance, the concept of a streak, which measures consecutive days of app usage, encourages users to return regularly. This motivates over three million users to maintain a streak longer than a year. Notifications also play a significant role in prompting users to engage with the app.

A simple but effective strategy is to send notifications 24 hours after the last app usage, maximizing the likelihood of user engagement. Duolingo also stops sending notifications after seven days of inactivity, but a cleverly worded notification about this cessation often prompts users to return. These tactics, along with the app's distinctive green owl mascot, have led to the creation of numerous internet memes and even SNL skits.

While it may be challenging to make an educational app as engaging as social media or mobile games, Duolingo has successfully utilized similar techniques to foster a desire to learn languages.

The great news is that educational products don't necessarily have to compete with the addictive nature of social media apps. When you're learning something, it's inherently meaningful, unlike spending hours mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. So, even if an educational app is 80 or 90 percent as engaging as TikTok, the remaining 10 or 20 percent can come from people's internal motivation.

This is crucial. By using similar techniques to those employed by social media, we can still attract millions of users to educational platforms. For instance, Duolingo has more language learners in the US than all high schools combined, and this trend is mirrored globally. My hope is to extend this success to other subjects, envisioning a future where mobile phones facilitate widespread learning, be it in math, physics, or any other discipline. I dream of a world where screen time isn't stigmatized, and quality education is accessible to all, regardless of wealth.

To conclude, I urge you to please continue your language lessons today. Thank you. And as for applying this approach to other subjects, particularly those that require repetition, we can gamify the learning process, much like Duolingo, to make it engaging and enjoyable. However, for subjects that rely on explanations, high-quality videos might be necessary. Sal Khan is a great example of someone doing this well. However, for repetitive learning, the same methods can be successfully employed.