Do Brain Games Really Make You Smarter?
Brain games are popping up everywhere these days, and the claims associated with them can seem a little too good to be true. Brain games won’t make you a genius, but certain ones have been shown to improve your working memory and increase your fluid intelligence.
Lumosity is a brain training program with scientifically designed games that aim to improve brain function — which can begin to slow as early as age 30. The company bases its research on the ACTIVE study which found that older adults who received training in memory, reasoning and processing speed improved their cognitive abilities and maintained the gains for years afterward.
The company reports that its scientifically developed brain training games:
- Increase alertness and awareness
- Improve your memory so you can recall names, numbers and directions more easily
- Elevate your mood
- Improve your concentration both at work and while driving
- Give you clearer and quicker thinking
Lumosity’s brain training is designed to give you a full cognitive workout in as little as 10 minutes at a time – although if you’re like me you’ll end up getting hooked and play for much longer.
Here are a few examples of the games.
Monster Garden
In this game you must navigate your farmer around the garden monsters. You will see quick images of monsters and then they will disappear. You get bonus points if you can point to where the monsters were after your game. Monster Garden is designed to improve memory.
Bird Watching
In this game, birds will pop up on a real life nature scene. Each bird is marked with a letter. You will click where you saw the bird and then you’re asked which letter appeared. Bird Watching is designed to improve attention.
Word Bubbles
In this game, you’ll be given a set of letters such as “tpa” and you’ll be asked to form as many words as you can from those letters. Word Bubbles is designed to train and improve your processing speed.
One of the features I like best is that you can track your progress with a “my history” link that will show you the difference in your scores, agility and overall performance. So, you don’t have to take the program’s word for it that it improves your brain. You can actually see for yourself if it’s working.
Lumosity offers a free trial so you can play all of the games and see if the program is right for you before you commit. After the trial period you have the option of continuing your training for a monthly fee of $9.95. There is also a second option where you can pay a one time fee for the whole year and save $39.45.
Take the free trial. I think you’ll be pleased with your results, however I’m not taking the blame if find yourself more than a little addicted to the games.
Click here to start your free trial with Lumosity’s Brain Games.
Posted: November 24, 2008
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Oh and p.s. I forgot to include this at the end of my last comment I was on my soapbox and completely forgot.
You have a lot of great content here, I subscribed to your feed and plan on keeping up with future updates… keep up the great work on your blog!
Well my whole view about the “smart” or “smarter” issue is that the whole thing is mostly perception, since people rarely actually check other people’s intelligence level (or their own for that matter), does it really matter all that much if brain games “technically” make you smarter?
What I’m trying to say is, increase alertness and awareness, improved memory, clearer and quicker thinking, and all the other benefits you listed increase not only OTHER people perception of your intelligence, but more importantly, your own perception. If it doesn’t actually make you smarter, wouldn’t it in fact be the same effect if it made you FEEL smarter and you avoided taking a test to measure if it technically did or not? I think so anyway…
And besides, when your memory starts to decline at age 30 … at least you’ll be smarter than all the 30+ year olds who don’t take part in brain training … which I’m guessing is a pretty large bunch ;-)
Just my two cents.
I am addicted to Brain Training on my DS – fabulous way to keep the mind on check.
Yes, it seems that brain games to make you react faster to certain things in life. However, you shouldn’t train only the intellectual aspect of this kind of activity – your proper physical reaction and attitude towards certain things that happen around you should also be trained hard if you want to achieve good results.
Just my 0.02$ :)
-sergiu
I’d echo the thought that physical condition can play just as important a role in keeping your brain fit. A fitter body means higher energy levels and improved alertness, and that can improve thought processes and reaction times.
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I don’t think brain games make you smarter, they make you more frustrated!
Haha, awesome. I’ve been feeling like my brain is kinda like…sludgey lately (see, I can’t even think of a proper word for it!), and trying to find things to stimulate it again. I picked up sudoku, which is nice, but these look like they might be even better. Gonna go try out Lumosity now; hopefully I don’t get addicted. :P
Hey Phil, I am a huge sudoku fan myself. The key to brain exercise is to make sure it is challenging, stimulating and novel. Keep switching things up – Lumosity is a fantastic way to do that.
Cassie – LOL. I hear ya on that one. Some of them can be really frustrating – especially just starting out.
@ Sammie Yeah, I know what you mean. I was doing some holiday shopping today and I pulled a calculator out to figure some sales prices. I just sat there and thought what are you doing! You should be doing this math in your head. We definitely need to keep up the brain exercise.
@ Tanya Good for you. I envy kids now as they have so much technology at their hands.
I agree – these games remind me of my time as a kid at school and they should use more of these currently in schools. I always use similar games to test my own children’s reactions and mental abilities – it seems to work!
I do think these brain games make you smarter – they sharpen your reactions and make you brain actually work. I think over the years we have gotten lazy over doing things with the use of computers and the internet and these games bring you back to school and how you originally learnt to recognise things.