Antisocial

I’ve been using duolingo for a few years now, trying to work on my various short lived Romance language enthusiasms.
In the last couple of years, I’ve been focusing on French, and have managed to work my way up to the diamond league. Duolingo itself has come on in leaps and bounds since the app first appeared. They have now figured out how to take advantage of people’s competitive streaks. A few weeks ago, they added a new feature which was a competition to find the crème de la crème – the top learners in the diamond league. I thought I’d give it a go. In the end it got so competitive and time consuming that I was spending hours on it each day, trying to accrue enough points each week not to be eliminated. It was grueling. And when I finally finished amongst the top group in the league, all we got for it was a “Well done! Now, can you do it again?” Which I have decided never to do. There were a couple of benefits, though. Presumably my French has improved somewhat – even though in the end I was going back to the most basic lessons in order to mine enough points to stay in the game – and the other plus is that it took me away from Facebook. I will often waste time each day, scrolling aimlessly through my newsfeed, looking at memes and funny videos of animals as well as reputable news sites. I haven’t missed it. I expected actually that my mental health might get a boost since we all know how damaging social media is in that regard. Alas, I haven’t noticed anything so far. In fact, in addition to my regular catalogue of 3 am anxieties has recently been added my spoodle, Maggie. Far from fixing her timidity with as much socializing as possible in these COVID times, she’s got even worse.  Her social anxiety is now officially worse  than mine. At least I don’t wet myself when neighbours come to the door, as she did yesterday.