How Duolingo’s New Energy System Is Failing Its Users

Last week, I was scrolling through my morning tech news when a headline from The Verge caught my attention: “Duolingo is replacing hearts with energy.”

My initial reaction was cautiously optimistic. As a gamification expert who has long criticized Duolingo’s heart system for punishing mistakes (mistakes are how we learn, right?) this sounded like progress. According to the article, the new system would “motivate you to focus on things you’re getting right rather than penalizing for the things that you’re making mistakes on.”

It sounded empowering! Swap loss aversion for a resource system with users in the driver’s seat, choosing how the spend their energy and how long they play.

Then I dug deeper into user reactions, and the cracks started to show immediately.

The Great Energy Experiment

Duolingo is rolling out one of its biggest interface changes since replacing the skill tree with a linear path in 2022. The familiar heart system, which has frustrated (and motivated) millions of language learners since 2017, is being replaced with what the company calls an “energy system.”

According to Moses Wayne, a senior staff engineer at Duolingo, the change is designed to be more “motivating” by “rewarding correct…