Is all this monitoring actually effective? I noticed my kindle has started to offer the same day steak as Duo Lingo. I can’t say I’m impressed. As a teacher I can see the appeal for tracking how often you use it. The proof is there, regular repeated exposure has a direct correlation to progression of learning. But I’m learning a whole new language that nobody around me is speaking; is it really so necessary on a reading app that’s not aimed at children? Most people read things every day: from road signs to doom scrolling. You’re hardly going to suddenly lose the ability to read because you didn’t use your kindle for a few days.
Now perhaps if it tracked WHAT you read, that would be useful. “Well done you have spent a portion of your working hours reading CPD that can be attributed to your current class” or “fantastic, you achieved over 30% of your reading through prized literature”. Or even a bit of a nudge in the form of “over 50% of your reading time has been spent on chick lit and magazine articles, try harder next month”. But I guess we are a while away from that.
At the moment we have the sort of tracking that appears a useful tool to enough of the population that they’ve decided to add extra exclamation marks. For the rest of us, I’ll wait until eye scanning and AI get an upgrade.
FaerieFalls 