There's ongoing tension in designing memory systems for "efficiency" vs. emotional experience.
In this (unlocked) post I argue that the critical thing to optimize is emotional connection and suggest a way to fluidly deprioritize boring material:
Conversation
But (to illustrate the tension) and RA Bjork ran an empirical study on the effects of students' choices to drop flashcards and found "small but consistently negative effects on learning." web.williams.edu/Psychology/Fac
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Of course, it's important to note that the broad term "learning" here is used to refer to "accuracy." Trading off accuracy for not-being-bored may actually be net positive for learning writ large!
… though, given the reported behavior, it's not clear that's what was happening.
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I think that dropping being good/bad depends a lot on the reasons behind it: "I lost interest in the topic" vs "I find the topic too hard".
The real problem is that you need quite a lot of sr experience to tell the reasons apart.
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For the first year or two of Anki practice, I didn't know about the suspend button (or if I did, I feared it). In hindsight it was a good thing.
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Mm maybe it wasn't a good thing, maybe it wouldn't have changed much.
I don't know.
What do you think?
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Replying to
I think you’re right that it matters why you’re dropping. If it’s out of a misplaced sense that you already know the material, that’s best indicated through something like Anki’s “easy” button. If it’s because you’re bored, that’s another story (& not reflected by these studies)