How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media | Luis Von Ahn | TED

So, I'm from Guatemala. This is a public service announcement that is where Guatemala is. Also, that is not where they keep the prisoners. That is called Guantanamo. Not the same place. So Guatemala is right below Mexico. And for the Americans in the audience, and let the sink in because it really applies in most ways. Americans in the audience, you can think of it as Mexico's Mexico. Just like the US doesn't want illegal immigration from Mexico, Mexico doesn't want illegal immigration from Guatemala. It's a smaller country. It's a poorer country. And well, what can I tell you? It has much better Mexican food.

所以，我来自危地马拉。这是一个公益公告，让大家知道危地马拉在哪里。而且，那不是关押囚犯的地方。那个地方叫关塔那摩，不是同一个地方。危地马拉就在墨西哥下面。对于在座的美国人来说，这点要理解，因为这在很多方面都适用。美国人可以把危地马拉想象成“墨西哥的墨西哥”。就像美国不希望墨西哥的非法移民，墨西哥也不希望危地马拉的非法移民。危地马拉是个更小、更贫穷的国家。不过，说真的，那里的墨西哥菜更好吃。

Guatemala is a very poor country. And a lot of people talk about education as something that brings equality to different social classes. But I always thought it was the opposite, as something that brings inequality. Because what happens in practice is that people who have a lot of money can by themselves be really good education and therefore continue having a lot of money. Whereas people who don't have very much money, barely learn how to read and write. And therefore never make a lot of money. And this is especially true in poor countries. Now, I was fortunate that I received a rich person's education, even though I didn't grow up rich. And it's because I'm an only child. And my mother, who was a single mother, spent all of her resources on my education. And this allowed me to come to college to the US and eventually get a PhD in computer science.

危地马拉是一个非常贫穷的国家。许多人认为教育可以带来不同社会阶层的平等。但我一直认为情况恰恰相反，教育反而带来不平等。因为实际上，有钱人可以为自己买到非常好的教育，因此继续保持财富。反之，没多少钱的人勉强学会读写，因此永远赚不到很多钱。这在贫穷国家尤其如此。幸运的是，尽管我不是在富裕家庭长大，但我还是接受了富人式的教育。这是因为我是独生子，我的母亲是单亲妈妈，她把所有资源都花在了我的教育上。这使我能够来到美国上大学，并最终获得计算机科学的博士学位。

Now, because of all of this, about 10 years ago, I decided I wanted to do something that would give equal access to education to everyone. Oh, by the way, this is what I want to talk to you about today. Giving equal access to education to everyone. At the time, I was a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University. And I decided to work on this with my PhD students, Severing. The way my brain works, all of education is just too general of a problem. So I decided, let's start by teaching one thing. And then I started thinking, okay, well, what should we teach first? Should we teach math? I mean, we both love math. Me and my co-founder, we both love math. And we didn't decide to do math. And we started thinking, well, maybe we should teach computer science. But eventually, and this may be surprising to people in North America, eventually we decided that the best subject to start with was teaching foreign languages.

现在，因为所有这些事情，大约在十年前，我决定要做点什么，让每个人都能平等地获得教育。哦，对了，这正是我今天要和你们谈论的内容——给所有人平等的教育机会。当时，我是卡内基梅隆大学计算机科学的教授。我决定和我的博士生Severing一起研究这个问题。由于我的思维方式，整个教育问题太过广泛，我决定我们先从教授一门课程开始。然后我开始思考，嗯，我们应该先教什么呢？我们应该教数学吗？我和我的合伙人都热爱数学，但我们并没有选择教数学。接着我们又考虑，也许我们应该教计算机科学。然而，最终可能会让北美的朋友感到惊讶的是，我们决定最好的起点其实是教授外语。

And let me tell you why. There's a number of reasons. One of them is that there's a huge audience for it. There's about two billion people in the world learning a foreign language, both in school and outside of schools. Most of these people, by the way, are learning English. About 80% of them are learning English. In this weird map right here, all the countries in green are countries in which people are predominantly learning English. And the reason for that is because English can truly transform your life. In most countries in the world, knowledge of English can significantly increase your income potential. So this is another reason why we decided to start with foreign languages. And it's because we can directly make more money if you learn another language in particular English.

让我告诉你为什么。有很多原因。其中一个原因是有巨大的受众群体。世界上大约有20亿人在学习外语，包括在学校和校外。顺便说一下，这些人大多数在学习英语。大约80%的人在学习英语。在这张奇怪的地图中，所有绿色的国家都是人们主要学习英语的国家。原因是英语真的可以改变你的生活。在世界上大多数国家，掌握英语可以显著增加你的收入潜力。所以，这是我们决定从外语开始的另一个原因。特别是学习英语，我们可以直接赚更多的钱。

And see, this is pretty different than many other subjects. For example, take math. In the case of math, just knowledge of math does not increase your income potential. Because usually you have to learn math to then learn physics to then become a civil engineer. Like that's how you make more money. Whereas with languages, if you are a waiter and you learn English, now you can be a waiter at a hotel and make more money. So we decided, well, let's get started by teaching languages. Now, we also convinced ourselves that the only way to really reach a lot of people was by using a mobile phone or a smartphone in particular. See, building schools all over the world is simple, too expensive. On the other hand, most of the world's population already has access to a smartphone.

看看，这和许多其他学科有很大不同。举个例子，像数学。仅仅拥有数学知识并不会提高你的收入潜力。因为通常你必须学习数学，然后学习物理，再进一步成为一名土木工程师，这样才能赚更多钱。而语言不同，如果你是一个服务员，学会了英语，你就可以在酒店做服务员，从而赚更多钱。所以我们决定先从教授语言开始。此外，我们还相信，真正能够接触到大量人的唯一途径是通过手机，特别是智能手机。因为在全球建学校太贵了，但另一方面，世界上大多数人已经有了智能手机。

And the trend is that that fraction is only going to increase. So we decided at the time that we would make a way to learn foreign languages on a mobile phone that was accessible to everyone. And then we called it Duolingo. Thank you. Now, in order to truly be accessible to everyone, rich and poor, Duolingo uses a freemium model to support itself. What that means is that you can learn as much as you want without ever having to pay. But if you don't pay, you may have to see an ad at the end of a lesson. Now, if you don't like ads, you can also pay to subscribe to turn off the ads. And it turns out that the vast majority of the revenue for Duolingo comes from people to pay to subscribe to turn off the ads.

趋势是这一比例只会增加。因此，我们当时决定开发一种在手机上学习外语的方式，使得人人都能使用。于是我们称它为多邻国（Duolingo）。谢谢。为了真正做到人人都能使用，无论贫富，多邻国采用了一种“免费增值”（freemium）模式来运作。这意味着你可以随意学习，从不需要付费。但如果你不付费，可能在一节课结束时看到一个广告。如果你不喜欢广告，也可以付费订阅来关闭广告。事实证明，多邻国的大部分收入来自那些付费订阅以关闭广告的用户。

Now who are these people who pay to subscribe to turn off the ads? Well, they're usually people, well off people, in rich countries like the US and Canada. Who are the people who don't pay to subscribe? They usually come from poorer countries like Brazil or Vietnam or Guatemala. So what I like about this model is that it is a small form of welfare distribution because we're basically getting the rich people to pay for the education of everyone. So I like that. Yes. It's a great. So with smartphones, we can reach a lot of people and we can even get the rich people to pay for the whole thing. This is great.

现在，哪些人会花钱订阅以关闭广告呢？他们通常是那些生活富裕的人，居住在像美国和加拿大这样的富裕国家。那么，哪些人不付费订阅呢？他们通常来自像巴西、越南或危地马拉这样的较贫穷国家。所以我喜欢这种模式，因为它在某种程度上是一种福利分配。我们基本上是让富人支付每个人的教育费用。这真是太棒了。是的，通过智能手机，我们可以接触到很多人，甚至可以让富人支付所有费用。这真是太好了。

However, if you're trying to deliver education with a smartphone, you run into a humongous problem. And it is that smartphones come equipped with some of the most addictive drugs that humanity has ever engineered. TikTok, Instagram, mobile games. See delivering education over a smartphone is like hoping that people will eat their broccoli. But right next to it, you put the most delicious dessert ever made. If you really want to deliver education to everyone, not only do you have to make it accessible, but also you have to make it so that people want to actually learn. And we do a thing that we've been able to do this. And at the highest level, the way we've done this is by making the broccoli taste like dessert. I'll say it another way.

然而，如果你试图通过智能手机传递教育，你将面临一个巨大的问题。那就是智能手机上配备了一些人类造出的最让人上瘾的东西，比如TikTok、Instagram和手机游戏。通过智能手机传递教育，就像希望人们吃西兰花，但旁边放着世界上最美味的甜点。如果你真的想把教育传递给每一个人，不仅要让它变得易于获取，还要让人们真正想要学习。我们找到了一种方法来实现这一目标。最根本的方法，就是让西兰花尝起来像甜点。换句话说。

What we've done is that we've used the same psychological techniques that apps like Instagram, TikTok, or mobile games used to keep people engaged. But in this case, we used them to keep people engaged with education. Let me give you some examples of these techniques. One of the most powerful ones is the notion of a streak. What a streak is, is it's just a counter that measures the number of days that you've used the product consecutively. You just take that number, you put it very prominently in your product, and then people come back every day. And the reason people come back every day is because, well, if they don't come back, that number resets to zero, and people don't want to lose their streak. It works. Now, on the one side, streaks have been criticized for, for example, getting teens addicted to Snapchat. But in the case of an educational app, streaks get people to come back to study every day.

我们所做的是利用了与Instagram、TikTok或手机游戏相同的心理技术来让人们保持参与度。但在这里，我们是用这些技术来让人们保持对教育的参与。让我给你举几个例子。其中一个最有效的技术就是“连续日计数”的概念。连续日计数只是一个统计你连续使用产品天数的计数器。你只需将这个数字放在产品的显著位置，然后人们每天都会回来使用。而人们每天都回来的原因是，如果他们不回来，这个数字就会重置为零，而大家并不想失去自己的连续计数。这真的有效。虽然“连续日计数”因为让青少年上瘾使用Snapchat而受到批评，但在教育应用中，这个功能能促使人们每天都回来学习。

Now to give you an idea of the power of streaks, in the case of Duolingo, we have over 3 million daily active uses that have a streak longer than 365. That means they haven't missed the day in the last year or longer. Now, fun fact about streaks. What country do you think has the longest average streaks for an educational app? It's Japan. Of course. Shortest average streaks? Latin America, baby. But we're fun. We're fun. Another important mechanism to get people to come back to your product are notifications. On the one side, notifications can be really spammy and annoying. But in the case of an educational product, people actually want to be reminded to learn. In the case of Duolingo, we have a very sophisticated AI system that basically chooses when to send the notification and also what to say in each notification to maximize the probability that people come back. Interestingly, even after all, the sophistication, it turns out that the algorithm for choosing what time to send your notification is pretty simple. You know what is the best time to send people a notification? I'll tell you. It's 24 hours after they use the product last. Because there's an easy explanation. If you were free yesterday at 3 p.m., you're probably free today at 3 p.m. as well. So this is what a very sophisticated millions of dollars of AI found. It's funny.

现在给你一个关于连胜记录威力的例子。在Duolingo的例子中，我们有超过三百万的日活跃用户，他们的连胜记录超过了365天。这意味着他们在过去一年或更长时间里没有错过一天。现在，关于连胜的小趣闻。你觉得哪个国家在教育类应用上的平均连胜记录最长？是日本，当然了。那么平均连胜记录最短的是哪个地区呢？拉丁美洲，但我们很有趣，我们很有趣。 另一个让人们重返你产品的重要机制是通知。一方面，通知可以非常垃圾和令人烦恼。但在教育产品的情况下，人们实际上希望被提醒去学习。以Duolingo为例，我们有一个非常复杂的AI系统，它基本上选择何时发送通知以及每个通知的内容，以最大化人们重返应用的概率。有趣的是，即使在所有这种复杂性之后，选择何时发送通知的算法实际上非常简单。你知道什么时候是发送通知的最佳时间吗？我告诉你，是你上次使用产品后24小时。因为有一个简单的解释。如果你昨天在下午3点有空，你今天下午3点可能也有空。所以这是一个价值数百万美元的复杂AI发现的结果，有点好笑对吧。

Now with notifications, you shouldn't be spammy. And we're not spammy. We do a lingo. We actually stop sending notifications after seven days of inactivity. So if you don't use Duolingo for seven days, we stop sending notifications. Now at some point, it occurred to us, if we're stopping the same people notifications, we should let them know. 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. You know what people do when they get this notification? They come back. It's aggressive. Works for my mother. Works for Duolingo. These passive aggressive notifications are really good at getting people to come back because they feel like our green owl mascot has given up on them. So they come back and speaking of our green owl mascot, by the way, because all our notifications come from our green owl mascot and, well, he's passive aggressive and also pretty pushy, this is given rise to a lot of memes on the internet that make fun of just the great lengths that he will go through to get you back to learn a language. Here's one of my favorite ones. This is a meme. It's one of my favorite ones. It's basically looks like you forgot your Spanish lessons and then there's an intruder learned presumably the owl broke into your house to get your learn language. Now Duolingo has entered the site, guys, and there's thousands of memes. There's SNL skits about it. It's because we've managed to get people to want to learn a language by using the same techniques that mobile games and social media use to get people engaged. And this is a really important point.

现在关于通知的问题，您不应该发布滥发的消息。而我们并不会这么做。我们有自己的一套规则。实际上，在用户七天没有活动后，我们会停止发送通知。因此，如果您连续七天不使用Duolingo，我们就会停止发送通知。后来我们想，如果我们停止给这些人发送通知，应该让他们知道。所以我们开始发送这样一条消息，告诉用户：“嘿，这些提醒似乎不起作用，我们暂时不再发送了。”您知道当人们看到这条消息时会做什么吗？他们会回来。这种方式很有效，对我母亲有效，对Duolingo也有效。这些带有些许被动攻击意味的通知非常擅长让人们回来，因为他们觉得我们的绿色猫头鹰吉祥物已经对他们失望了。所以他们会回来。顺便提一下我们的绿色猫头鹰吉祥物，因为所有的通知都是它发出的，而它的风格既被动攻击又有些强势，这使得网上出现了很多取笑它的表情包，搞笑它为了让你继续学习语言所采取的极端手段。这里有一个我最喜欢的表情包之一。基本内容是：“看起来你忘记了你的西班牙语课程”，然后有一个闯入者，可能是猫头鹰破门而入提醒你继续学语言。现在Duolingo已经深入人心，有成千上万的表情包，还有《周六夜现场》的搞笑片段。这是因为我们借鉴了手机游戏和社交媒体用来吸引用户的技巧，成功让人们想学习一门语言。这是一点非常重要。

Let me say this. I don't actually believe that there's a way to make an educational app as engaging as something like TikTok or Instagram or mobile games. But the good news is that, and by the way, the reason I don't believe that is because ultimately you have to teach people something and it's hard to compete with cats and celebrities. But the good news is that I don't think you have to. See, here's the thing. When you're learning something, you get meaning out of it. Whereas when you're scrolling for two hours on Instagram, a lot of times afterwards, you feel like you just wasted your time. So I think it's actually okay if your educational product is only 80 or 90% as engaging as something like TikTok because the other 10 or 20% will be provided by people's internal motivation. Though, of course, not much more than that. This is really a key point. If you want to get people to do something meaningful, you can use the same techniques that apps like social media use to get people to do it. And even if you're not as engaging as those apps are, you can still get hundreds of millions of people to use your product. In the case of Duolingo, for example, there are more people learning languages on Duolingo in the United States than there are people learning languages across all US high schools combined. And this is true in most countries in the world. My hope is that – I know we can do this – but my hope is that as humanity, we can do what Duolingo has done for learning languages, but for all other subjects where we can get people to learn math with mobile phones, like millions of people to learn math with mobile phones or physics or whatever. I hope for a future in which screen time is not a bad thing in which we can deliver high quality education to everyone, richer for using a mobile phone.

让我这样说吧。我实际上并不认为有办法能使一个教育应用程序像TikTok、Instagram或者手机游戏那样有吸引力。不过，好消息是，其实你也不需要这样做。首先，我之所以这么认为，是因为教育应用程序最终要教人们一些东西，这很难和猫咪视频以及名人竞争。但好消息是，我并不觉得这必须成为问题。 事情是这样的，当你在学习某样东西时，你会从中获得意义。而当你在Instagram上刷了两小时后，很多时候你会觉得自己浪费了时间。因此，我认为，即使你的教育产品整体吸引力只有TikTok的80%或90%，剩下的10%或20%也会通过人们的内部动机来补足。当然，这也不要超过太多。这是一个关键点。如果你想让人们做有意义的事情，你可以使用社交媒体应用程序的技巧来吸引他们去做。即便你没有那些应用程序那么有吸引力，你仍然可以吸引成百上千万的人使用你的产品。 比如说，杜林哥（Duolingo），在美国，通过杜林哥学习语言的人数已经超过了所有美国高中学习语言的总人数。这个情况在世界大多数国家都是一样的。我希望，而且我知道我们可以做到，我希望人类可以像杜林哥那样在其他学科上取得同样的成就，让人们通过手机学习数学、物理等。我希望未来的屏幕时间将不再是一件坏事，我们可以利用手机为所有人提供高质量的教育，让大家因使用手机而变得更富有知识。

But the single most important thing that I can end this talk with is a reminder to please, pretty please, I beg you to your language lessons today. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Luis, thank you so much. Thank you. I wonder if you can just say a little bit more about that last point, about how do you think that you can apply this type of thinking to other subjects? So you mentioned math, you mentioned things like that. How do you do that? Yeah, I think in particular subjects that are learned through repetition. And it turns out most things that are kind of really meaningful to learn through like thousands and thousands of repetitions, you learn to read through repetition, you learn elementary school math repetition. Most things that you can learn through repetition, you can actually gamify and turn into something like Duolingo where people just do it a lot and do it fun. It's a little harder for things like explanations. That's probably going to require some really good videos. Salkan is doing a really good job with that. But for things that require a lot of repetition, I think we can use the same methods. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing with me. Thank you. Thank you.

但是，我可以用来结束这次演讲的最重要的一件事就是提醒大家，请务必，恳请你们今天进行语言学习。非常感谢你们。谢谢。谢谢。Luis，非常感谢。谢谢。我想问一下，您能不能再多说一点关于您最后提到的观点，就是您认为这种思维方式怎么可以应用到其他学科呢？您提到了数学和其他类似的东西。那该怎么做呢？ 是的，我认为尤其是那些通过重复学习的学科。实际上，大多数真正有意义的东西都是通过成千上万次的重复学会的，比如阅读是通过重复学会的，小学数学也是通过重复学会的。大多数可以通过重复学习的东西，实际上都可以游戏化，变成像Duolingo那样，让人们既频繁练习又充满乐趣。对于解释类的内容来说会有些难度，这可能需要一些非常优秀的视频。萨尔曼·可汗（指可汗学院的创始人）在这方面做得非常好。但对于那些需要大量重复的东西，我认为我们可以使用相同的方法。 太棒了。非常感谢您与我们分享。谢谢。谢谢。