Dr Jared Cooney Horvath

because of the thinking you're doing throughout it, the discussions you're having, you remember a ton about it two decades later.

So engagement is not the right metric.

But when we gamify something, what happens is we end up focusing on the mechanics of the game.

How does the game work?

So I always say my example is always Oregon Trail.

So I grew up, I'm part of the Oregon Trail generation.

To this day, I can tell you everything about that game.

I know which buttons to press to shoot.

I know where to go to find bear instead of rabbits, how to ford a river.

I got it.

Only recently did somebody tell me that was meant to be a history lesson.

That wasn't a game.

That was supposed to be a lesson for kids to learn the Oregon Trail.

Mate, I couldn't tell you anything about the Oregon Trail today.

I don't know who did it, when it happened, where it went.

I probably ended in Oregon.

That's my best guess.

But the reason was because I was focused on the mechanics rather than the content of the game.

That's the Duolingo issue, by the way.

So somebody just did research comparing Duolingo, which is gamified, to Babbel, which is a non-gamified learning app.