I didn’t buy a smartphone until I was forced to in 2013, when my ancient flip was put out of its misery by a spilled can of Vanilla Coke. As a new convert, I quickly came to believe my phone would soon improve my life. I began downloading apps that promised to make me better: more organized, better read, more cultured. I was convinced I could swipe my way to self-improvement.

Eventually, I learned about Duolingo, which turns the complex task of learning a new language into something like a video game. Users start by picking the language they want to study (there are currently 23 options available for English speakers, from Swahili to Welsh), after which they’re greeted with about 100 vocabulary and grammar ‘‘skills,’’ structured like a tree. Finish a skill, and you’re rewarded with a dopamine burst in the form of points. Then you do another one.

I did a couple of French lessons, which took all of five minutes. It was easy, and I was smitten by the possibilities. Maybe I’ll even take up German, I thought as I started the second lesson. I would become cosmopolitan and sophisticated, skipping across Europe and impressing local shopkeepers with my breezy fluency wherever I went. Maybe I would learn to differentiate among various wursts. Anything felt possible.

Of course, I soon lost interest and stopped using Duolingo, or for that matter, any apps that weren’t Instagram or Tinder. (Turns out, self-improvement apps are way more engaging when you’re just using them to distract yourself from other problems.) Then, one night, I couldn’t sleep. I tried reading a book, then I tried scrolling through the Facebook profiles of people I hadn’t talked to since high school, but neither worked. Soon it was 3 a.m., and I was still awake, but now I was also full of self-loathing. If I was going to stay up and waste time online, I might as well do something that wasn’t going to make me feel awful. For the first time in two years, I opened my Duolingo app, and I decided I wanted to learn Dutch.