The Tyranny of The Streak
Mar. 1st, 2024 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elrhiarhodanUnless you've completely eschewed all electronic conveniences, it's almost impossible to avoid becoming subservient to the Power and Might of The Streak.
Your Fitbit does this to you. So does your Apple Watch. And your iPad. And your Kindle. If you do the NYT Crossword Puzzle, you're it's victim. And let's not forget to mention DuoLingo, the biggest StreakMaster of them all.
Somehow, we are now all chasing that tiny bit of serotonin from the notification that we've now added one more day to our Streak, and we're willing to sacrifice our physical and mental well-being to keep the Streak going.
A few years ago, I had a 550+ day streak going on completing the NY Times Crossword puzzle. I had been thinking about breaking that streak for months, resenting the need to keep on going, but I couldn't stop myself. I ended up accidentally missing a day and when I realized what happened, I dropped into a funk so deep I couldn't do the puzzle for weeks. I've never been able to get the rhythm back and the longest streak I've had since has been 130 days.
Similarly, I had a 370+ day Move streak on my Apple Watch - just over a year. I had to break it when I got the flu. I would get up and walk up and down the stairs but nothing I did would get me even close the the minimal goal I'd set and with a 103-degree fever, I finally gave up. I'm still not feel great three weeks later and although I try my best to get my ass moving, it's still hard. Last night, after spending the day wishing I could just crawl into bed and stay there, I gave up. It was 8:30, I was in tears (yeah, a grown-ass woman crying over a sore throat and body aches), and I was 85% to my daily goal, but I just had to give up.
You know what? Fuck the streak.
I do manage to ignore the daily reading goals from the Books app on my iPad. That's meaningless to me. I do a lot of reading that doesn't get calculated.
But the new monster is DuoLingo. Friends are quick to tell me about their streaks. I don't want to hear it. I've just started. I'm trying to re-learn Latin. Why? Because I suspect that Yoda was once a Roman Censor - it's the whole "subject-object-verb" thing.
I know I shouldn't let the fucking owl badger me. I suspect I'll be like everyone else and get glued to my phone for an hour or so every night. Better than surfing "Am I the Asshole" on Reddit for the schadenfreude.
Anyone out there feel the same way? What's your longest streak? Or better, what do you do to avoid the Tyranny of The Streak?
Your Fitbit does this to you. So does your Apple Watch. And your iPad. And your Kindle. If you do the NYT Crossword Puzzle, you're it's victim. And let's not forget to mention DuoLingo, the biggest StreakMaster of them all.
Somehow, we are now all chasing that tiny bit of serotonin from the notification that we've now added one more day to our Streak, and we're willing to sacrifice our physical and mental well-being to keep the Streak going.
A few years ago, I had a 550+ day streak going on completing the NY Times Crossword puzzle. I had been thinking about breaking that streak for months, resenting the need to keep on going, but I couldn't stop myself. I ended up accidentally missing a day and when I realized what happened, I dropped into a funk so deep I couldn't do the puzzle for weeks. I've never been able to get the rhythm back and the longest streak I've had since has been 130 days.
Similarly, I had a 370+ day Move streak on my Apple Watch - just over a year. I had to break it when I got the flu. I would get up and walk up and down the stairs but nothing I did would get me even close the the minimal goal I'd set and with a 103-degree fever, I finally gave up. I'm still not feel great three weeks later and although I try my best to get my ass moving, it's still hard. Last night, after spending the day wishing I could just crawl into bed and stay there, I gave up. It was 8:30, I was in tears (yeah, a grown-ass woman crying over a sore throat and body aches), and I was 85% to my daily goal, but I just had to give up.
You know what? Fuck the streak.
I do manage to ignore the daily reading goals from the Books app on my iPad. That's meaningless to me. I do a lot of reading that doesn't get calculated.
But the new monster is DuoLingo. Friends are quick to tell me about their streaks. I don't want to hear it. I've just started. I'm trying to re-learn Latin. Why? Because I suspect that Yoda was once a Roman Censor - it's the whole "subject-object-verb" thing.
I know I shouldn't let the fucking owl badger me. I suspect I'll be like everyone else and get glued to my phone for an hour or so every night. Better than surfing "Am I the Asshole" on Reddit for the schadenfreude.
Anyone out there feel the same way? What's your longest streak? Or better, what do you do to avoid the Tyranny of The Streak?
no subject
Date: 2024-03-01 08:34 pm (UTC)I don't wear my Apple watch on the weekends for the most part, and thus it's impossible for me to get any kind of a streak going.
Besides Duolingo, my biggest streak is on Snapchat with my daughter. I don't want to disappoint her by breaking it. So there's that.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-02 02:45 pm (UTC)But chatting with your daughter every day is a good thing, no?