Low carb gaming
I recently took a look at one of the sponsored stories on Digg, How Brain Training can Make You Significantly Smarter, which talked about how scientific studies have proven that playing online games that put your nog to work DO have a measurable positive outcome (students’ math scores went up 34%, people reported not feeling as dumb and also happier, etc etc). The article basically functioned as an advert for a site called Lumosity that features tons of these games. Moreover–just my luck! — Lumosity is running a free trial of their premium membership, which claims to be able to create a unique curriculum to help buff up my brain in areas of my choosing, as well as draw up a profile of my cognitive abilities and improvements.
Besides howlifeworks.com, (which I suspect to be just an advertising site masquerading as a lifestyle site), there is an abundance of articles from more respectable sources that support the claims that smartypants-inclined games do have markedly positive results.
While it would be fun to structure a travelogue completely around concrete measurements marking the progress of my brains’ thunderous rise to the equivalent of this guy, I’m not even going to try. Instead, I would like to explore the following:
- Lumosity as a site — how it works, how I interact with it, and what it has to say. Would like to get in touch with some creators to hear what they’ve got to say. Also maybe talk to some people who have knowledge about brain function/memory/out of shape brains, etc. Found this site that’s all obssessed with cognitive functioning, etc, and could prove as a good resource.
- The possibility of Lumosity as a social means — by signing up, you create a user account and … I think? can make friends and communicate with other users. Would be interesting to talk to other users about their experiences with that type of gaming. Do they go about it like one would a dedicated fitness regime or is it more of a casual thing?
- A broader explanation of cognitive gaming as a whole. What fundemental attributes must it have to be considered a workout for your brain? This article talks about the connection between fast thinking and happiness, and I also found a resource to connect me to other brain game websites. Also, there’s this site that’s all obssessed with cognitive functioning, etc, and could prove as a good resource.
- And lastly, a sort of evaluative process that puts this whole phenomena into a wider context concerning its existence as new media.