Right, except OP and the research suggests it’s not effective, even though it feels like you’re doing it. So yes, 10 minutes of walking a day is interior to an hour of HIIT, obviously. And yes 10 minutes of walking a day is better than not walking in a day, for your health. But no matter how many days in a row you slowly walk 10 minutes, you’ll never be able to run a marathon. It just doesn’t do that.
So if everyone’s goal with Duolingo was to vaguely know some words in a language they can’t communicate in, and it was just a brain exercise like a crossword, then sure. No harm done.
But that’s not most people’s goal, and what the research shows is that for all the time people spend doing it, they could have spent that time doing something else and actually made progress towards their goals.
Right, but is it a language learning app? Or is it a “play games with aggressive owl” app with a language learning theme? Because if after 365 straight days of playing games with owl you cannot use the language you’ve been “learning” to communicate, then you aren’t learning a language. And if you’re not learning the language, then what are you doing with the owl?