‘We haven’t seen you in a while’: Duolingo’s passive-aggressive strategy for keeping users hooked

“I’m getting tired of these passive-aggressive reminders,” says one Reddit user. And they’re not the only one to have complained about Duolingo’s messages. These range from texts criticizing users for not using the language-learning app, to images of the iconic owl looking sad, or even near-moribund when users haven’t logged in for a few days.

“He’s just really tired of having to remind everyone to do their lessons, obviously,” said Duolingo’s head of social media on TikTok in reference to the owl’s sad-looking appearance, making it clear that the popular learning platform is using passive aggression to keep users engaged.

More than a few parents have complained that Duolingo is making their children cry by making them feel guilty for not using the app. And many internet users criticize the platform’s marketing strategy as far from friendly. Yet despite the criticism, this aggressive approach is working. Every day, 24.2 million people log in to learn one of the 42 languages offered by the world’s most downloaded educational app, which has over 80 million users.

“Its behavior is undoubtedly passive-aggressive. It’s an application that bets, like so many others, on gamification. What it creates is anxiety, because no matter what you have to do, when you receive a notification with a sad owl, you feel guilty,” says Mauro Entrialgo, author of the Spanish-language book Malismo. “Still, like so many other games, by offering a limited environment in which one can control what happens, the app provides a certain peace, giving the user a sense of control. If it’s addictive, it’s because it has a way of making the user feel good by completing a very simple task.”

“Duolingo understands that its public wants to learn languages, but gets easily frustrated by their lack of progress,” says Rafa Gálvez, a businessman, investor and expert mentor in the purchasing of firms, marketing and sales. He sees this as the app’s motivation for hitting us where it hurts, with its persistent reminders and visible achievements.

Yolanda Cambra, an expert in marketing and sales psychology, argues that apps now need to create a greater impact on their users. “Quality is no longer a bonus, it’s a basic requirement. When new generations purchase a product, they are also paying for the relationship they form with the brand. Sales, more than ever, are a relational experience based on emotions. What appeals most to a young person: well-intentioned, conservative messages or ironic ones? Expectation, surprise, and happiness are some of the emotions that, when tied to an experience, create a positive impact. And if brands are seeking anything, it’s to be memorable. The magic of branding lies in lingering in the memory bank of a potential consumer,” she explains.

Like many others, Duolingo has turned to gamification to engage its users. The difference, however, is that while other apps struggle to maintain such a strategy, Duolingo has fully embraced it, with its casual user interactions helping its owl icon develop a personality of its own.

“Learning a language takes time and commitment, and sometimes it can feel overwhelming (there’s so much to learn!). That’s why we use gamification to help our students develop long-term study habits and make learning fun,” says a post on the Duolingo blog.

“It keeps users hooked with daily streaks, levels to unlock, and badges for goals achieved,” explains Gálvez. “This triggers dopamine in the brain, which reinforces the impulse to return to the app day after day. And when you add the ability to compete against friends and track your position in a ranking, the level of user engagement increases even further.”

However, even with its gamification strategy, Duolingo’s passive-aggressive attitude may not always produce positive results if it continues for too long. Marketing campaigns that make people feel bad about themselves can evoke guilt and shame, potentially triggering a defensive response.

“If people feel as though they’re constantly bumping up against reminders of their failure, they may decide they’re no longer having fun and move on,” writes Kelli María Korducki in Business Insider.

“A few months before I went on a much-needed vacation to Mexico City in 2018, I tried Duolingo, the ubiquitous language-learning app, to gently push my Spanish skills into something resembling respectability,” writes Angela Lashbrook for Debugger. “But I generally dislike phone games, which meant I didn’t love the app, which gamifies language education through exercises and achievements. I fell off, as many of us fledgling second-language learners do. Duolingo did not take it well. After ignoring the app’s rude emails (‘Learning Spanish requires daily practice. Practice now?’ ‘We haven’t seen you in a while.’ ‘Keep Duo happy!’) and failing to log into the game for about a month, the app sent me one last, passive-aggressive-as-hell notification. ‘These reminders don’t seem to be working. We’ll stop sending them for now.’”

Duolingo isn’t the only app that has adopted a tone that doesn’t exactly lead with sweetness. Take Spotify, for example, with its annual “Wrapped” feature that delivers a full-blown roast, complete with barbed comments about your playlists and witty, sarcastic one-liners. The thing is, these tactics work.

“They manage to steer clear of posturing and are the closest thing to a tactless friend who blurts things out to you, filter-free,” says Cambra. “This reinforces commitment. What’s more, it creates identity, as it shows a taste and behavior that is very specific to that group of people, and demonstrates that they make products expressly for them and no one else. This makes people feel like they’re part of an exclusive club and community.”

As if that weren’t enough, Duolingo is fully aware that many of the sentences it employs in encouraging users to learn are ridiculous. “Finding silly and surprising sentences in a lesson keeps you on your toes and engaged in your learning. Quirky sentences also have a hidden superpower: they are memorable!” says a post on the Duolingo blog. And so it goes that, between silly content and passive-aggressive emails, millions of people have become addicted to an application whose raison d’etre is to make them learn.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition