Why do you even care? It's an artificial count by a for-profit company with an Owl logo that doesn't even know you exist outside of a few database rows.
You've just self-described it as slavery, why would you keep doing this to yourself?
It's kind of like telling a smoker to just quit because it's the smoking company who benefits. Yeah, sure, but the addiction is internal. They're not just selflessly smoking to help Philip Morris.
#downvoteInApproach :)
Nobody has yet shown me a flawless proof that they themselves exist, or anything else, and yet somehow, I manage to get through my days just fine based on the versions of things in my mind that correspond to the empirical phenomena that I experience. And occasionally those mental constructs change with new empirical data even.
The GP's comment was that they were effectively 'slave' to a skinner box, and even recognized it. And yet, refusal to do anything about it.
I see it again and again. The answers are there, and a bit harder, but yeah.
I mean, I literally said in the same post what I was going to do about it. I'm ending it on my own terms when I'm satisfied with my own progress.
After a year the milestones become less meaningful (400 days? 500? 700? meh) yet harder and harder to break the longer you go. A friend recently hit 1000 days in Duolingo--really hard to give up once you've gone that far.
Lots of people harness this for their own good with streaks for things that are really actually valuable for them.
I don't like being nitpicky, but if we're going to argue about the "correct usage" and not accept colloquial usage has perverted the term, I may as well set the record straight:
>a person who is forced to work for and obey another and is considered to be their property; an enslaved person.
No, it is actually completely correct. But for the sake of playing this fun game of being "Technically right" here's also a dictionary definition:
Slave noun:
"a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person:"
She was a slave to her own ambition.
>>and not accept colloquial usage has perverted the term
No such thing has happened, words can have both literal and figurative meaning.
fair enough, I thought that definition was unofficial or marked as slang.
>No such thing has happened, words can have both literal and figurative meaning.
yes, like "literally" having the definition of "figuratively". I would indeed call that a perversion:
>to divert to a wrong end or purpose
most of the time that is at best marked as slang (such as use of a double negative to mean a negative, and not a soft positive), but I guess that's not my call to make.
Thankfully I got out of it and am much more consciously breaking streaks.
The downside is that I've clearly been exercising a lot less since I stopped focusing on the streak, so it works in some ways…
We should have a way to adjust what we consider a streak: maybe a daily streak is important to you, but maybe 3 times a week is what matters to you. Having the option for each app would be great.
I have a 297 day streak right now and I just feel like slave to the owl. I’m going to get to 365 and then purposely break the streak to free myself.