4 Tips on How to Make Learning Addictive from Duolingo’s CEO

Want to make learning so addictive that people return day after day for more? 

Luis von Ahn, CEO and cofounder of the language learning app Duolingo, knows a thing or two about this, and made it the subject of a TED Talk, How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media. His charming TED talk was the second-most watched of 2023.

“What we’ve done is we’ve used the same psychological techniques that apps like Instagram, TikTok, or mobile games use to keep people engaged,” Luis says. “But in this case, we use them to keep people engaged with education.”  

There are reasons you may want to watch. Years before starting the language app, Luis received a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called “Genius” Grant, for his pioneering work in computer science. Since starting Duolingo in 2011, he and cofounder Severin Hacker have grown the business to become the most frequently downloaded education app in the world, with more than 500 million users. And perhaps most impressive — at least in the eyes of learning and development professionals — they’ve motivated more than 3 million of those users to tap into Duolingo every day for at least a year.

The secrets to their success? Let’s unpack Luis’s fun and super-helpful tips.

1. Use streaks as a way to get learners hooked 

One of the most effective techniques Luis and Severin borrowed from digital games is “streaks,” which measure the number of consecutive days a learner visits a site or uses a product. Duolingo displays streaks prominently on its app, to keep users motivated. 

“The reason people come back every day,” Luis says, “is because, well, if they don’t come back, that number resets to zero.” 

Luis points out that streaks have been criticized because they can have unwanted effects, like getting teenagers addicted to social media. “But in the case of an educational app,” he says, “streaks get people to come back to study every day.” 

2. Send notifications at the same time every day 

Duolingo also uses notifications to get people to use the app. “On the one side, notifications can be really spammy and annoying,” Luis says, “but in the case of an educational product, people actually want to be reminded to learn.” 

Duolingo uses a sophisticated AI system to figure out when to send notifications and what to say in each one. But despite investing millions in AI, the company has learned that the algorithm for when to send a prompt is pretty simple: It’s 24 hours after a customer last used the app. “If you were free yesterday at 3 p.m.,” Luis says, “you’re probably free today at 3 p.m. as well.”

3. Give users a heads-up if you’re going to stop sending notifications

This may seem counterintuitive but telling users you’re about to stop sending notifications is one of the best ways to get them back to the app. 

Normally, Duolingo sends users a prompt every day, encouraging people to learn. But if a user receives notifications for seven days in a row without using the app, the company stops sending notifications.   

“Now, at some point, it occurred to us that if we’re stopping sending people notifications, we should let them know,” Luis says. “So, we started sending this notification to people, saying, ‘Hey, these reminders don’t seem to be working. We’ll stop sending them for now.’” 

And guess what happened? Users felt like the company’s green owl mascot was giving up on them and they came back.   

4. Be almost as engaging as social media 

Luis says that it’s not actually possible to make an educational app that’s as engaging as TikTok or Instagram. “It’s hard,” he jokes, “to compete with, like, cats and celebrities.”

Wait, what? “It’s actually OK if your educational product is only 80 or 90 percent as engaging as something on TikTok,” Luis explains, “because the other 10 or 20 percent will be provided by people’s internal motivation.” 

In other words, even if you can’t capture users’ hearts with cats and celebrities, people will return because they want to learn something. 

“When you’re learning something, you get meaning out of it,” he explains, adding that when you’ve been scrolling through social media feeds, “a lot of time afterwards, you feel like you just wasted your time.” 

Final thoughts: Luis’s hope for the future 

While social media techniques work well for learning languages, Luis hopes that they can be applied to other subjects too. In that spirit, Duolingo now has programs for math and music, as well as foreign languages. L&D pros should take note of how learning can be delivered on a mobile platform and made enticing with the same gamification tactics Duolingo uses to make its offerings so sticky.

“I hope for a future in which screen time is not a bad thing,” Luis says, “in which we can deliver high-quality education to everyone, rich or poor, using a mobile phone.”