Addicted to the Owl: Habitual Media Use and Gamification in Duolingo User Communities on Reddit
Summary
This thesis explores user engagement with Duolingo’s gamification features on
Reddit. Through a mixed-methods analysis combining walkthrough study and computational
text analysis, it examines how design elements like streaks, leaderboards, quests, and rewards
influence motivation, habits, and community practices. Drawing on Chun’s (2016) theory of
habitual media and Nagy and Neff’s (2015) concept of imagined affordances, the analysis of
23,000 Reddit comments reveals that while gamification fosters engagement, it also generates
pressures that can harm intrinsic motivation. Reddit emerges as a space where users
collectively negotiate these tensions, offering insights into the intersection of digital learning,
community formation, and platform governance.