This is my brain on Lumosity. Can you tell the difference?
For those of you who don’t stay up toward the ‘crack enough to see the Lumosity commercials with the dumb short-haired girl cheesing out that it’s “serious brain training” with an animated light bulb over her head, I hate you for getting more sleep than me. For the rest of you, you know you want to try that infomercially goodness, don’t you?
Stop right there, Mr./Ms. Clicky. I’ve tried it for you, been training my brain for the last 15 days, in fact, so you don’t have to waste your money/life.
Here’s what I’ve discovered about my brain through the seemingly pointless neuroplasticity-building games of Lumosity:
1. My brain still wants to call this site/service/elaborate hoax Luminosity instead of Lumosity, which it feels dumb having me pronounce. I don’t blame you, brain!
2. Lumosity claims that their games are designed by neuroscientists, but my paranoid brain suspects this whole deal was designed by a group of sandal-wearing Harvard undergrads with obnoxious laughs who think they’re starring in The Social Network.
3. It doesn’t matter what the game, my brain will latch onto it, play it a million times, and suck the fun out of it, until I’m the BEST OF ALL TIME. Either that or it wants to quit right away and try something else. (Tip: Press the refresh button on your browser so a bad round doesn’t affect your overall score.)
4. Shooting birds that flash on the screen while simultaneously remembering a flashing letter doesn’t make me a better athlete and/or driver, as the site vaguely promises. It does, however, make me a better time-waster.
5. My brain thinks remembering where a series of blocks should be placed is annoying; again, I have a tendency to agree with my brain.
6. My brain is in the 90-somethingeth percentile of people in my age range. These people are probably monkeys that the aforementioned Harvard douches keep in their dorms as test subjects, but still … my brain is pretty impressive, no?
7. My brain really wants to believe the training is working, as indicated by me asking people, “Do I seem smarter lately?”
8. I’ve invited my sister and her husband to join me in training, so I don’t feel quite as dumb doing it myself. My trick worked. They’re hooked!
If, after reading all these “learnings” of mine, you’re still tempted to try Lumosity, I give you permission to click here. Just make sure you come back and post a comment about the experience. If you forget, then the training obviously didn’t work, sorry.
Oh, and apropos of whatever, you should probably download a free sample chapter of The Edumacation of Jay Baker.
I’ve just completed a years training course on Lumosity – problem is, I forgot what I was going to say…
Actually Jay, you’ve already become smarter because you realize that digital based brain training programs like Lumosity are BS. We are analog beings, not computers so like you said shooting at birds on a screen will not make you a better athlete. However, an analog based program can – plus you’ll learn faster, shoot better, and be quicker at conversation with the opposite sex even after a few beers. Check out combatbraintrainingdotcom for real world testimonials that will blow your mind, most after as little as 6 hours of training. But not any analog program – CBT is the only one of its kind in the world according to US SpecOpsCommand. In person or via Skype its guaranteed to work.