I’ve seen the commercials. I’ve printed off PCMag’s 2012 review. It looks like something I’d enjoy and my mom too.
I realize cognitive training is exactly a proven science. But the few games I’ve seen look challenging and fun. I like puzzles.
Any personal experience with it? Did you keep your membership active? Anything you strongly disliked or liked? Just share your experience.
I had some minor memory scares the past few months. Things that remind me of my dad. I’ve bought Sharp cheddar cheese my entire adult life. Yet I came home with Extra Sharp a month ago. I noticed my sandwich tasted bad and then looked at the cheese. My Boston Terrier gets two scoops of food. Somehow I got her mixed up with my chihuahua and only gave her 1 scoop for a few weeks. My wife had to remind me it was 2. My dad was the same way. He started leaving post it notes laid out when he was in his late 50’s. He was checked at the VA for alzheimers many times. Didn’t have that. He lived another 20 years before it got worse.
I haven’t lost my cookies yet. But it wouldn’t hurt to get my ass busy with some logic puzzles, math problems and so on. Get the old gray cells active.
I’ve been in a rut as a Computer Analyst for the past 10 years. I’ve written the same Ad Hoc SQL reports using the same Tables over and over again. It’s not a challenge anymore. It’s just a daily grind that produces a paycheck. I’ve thought about learning a new language like Java or PHP. But I’d never use it. The last thing in the world I want to do is use my free time writing programs. I’m sick of this computer crap. 27 years is a long time to do the same old shit.
I’m a member for similar reasons. My memory is going and I wanted to so some puzzles that were fun and challenging. I enjoy it because it doesn’t take a lot of time and it allows you to progress. I haven’t done anything similar to this so I can’t compare it with anything else on the market.
When I got my device I downloaded their app, gave it a spin, wasn’t that keen on it and deleted it within a couple of weeks.
I still get freaking spammy mail from them regularly. And no amount of un subscribing will work, I’m warning you. On about the tenth attempt I read all the fine print, which includes something to the effect, ‘unsubscribing won’t stop us sending you generated spammy mail’.
Bastards! I hate them. Don’t do it. You’ve been warned!
I’ll create a special hotmail.com account for lumosity. They can spam that all they want.
I appreciate the warning. It’s been awhile since I ran across a site that spams this much. I had a couple email accounts for spam that are inactive now.
So, almost no one here uses Lumosity? That’s surprising. I guess the ads give a false impression its popular.
I post to boards like the SDMB partially to keep up my writing skills. It’s a little more challenging than writing out a grocery list. The topics here are interesting and posting a reply forces me to stop and compose my thoughts. Another tune up for the grey matter.
Please tell me that you are not surprised by this part. Otherwise, you may need more immediate attention than brain puzzlers can provide.
Before Lumosity there was the Brain Fitness Program, of which I received a copy as a prize for contributing to public radio. I think it’s the same idea (although I have never used Lumosity) but it is an installed program rather than a web-based application. I only got into the first few modules, which worked with sound perception rather than brain puzzles (and it came with a set of nifty headphones). Now that I think of it, their whole thing was about keeping and improving your perception skills rather than your ability to think and remember things. So maybe they aren’t that similar after all.
Anyway, to make a long story short (too late, as I used to tell my father), I didn’t continue it for very long because it seemed like you had to go for an hour at a time, several times a week, to make any progress, and I did not have that much time to invest in it. Maybe I’ll take it up again after I retire.
Roddy
I had a subscription to Lumosity for a year and used it fairly frequently in the beginning. But the games and puzzles just seemed to get more and more repetitive, and the studies I’ve seen seem to show the only thing you get better at is the games themselves. (The exception apparently being the “N-back” memory games where you’re presented with a series of faces or images and challenged to remember a face or symbol you saw two or three times ago; those might improve overall IQ or might not.) I used the site less and less as the year wore on, and didn’t bother to re-subscribe.
I suppose as a way to keep the mind agile and engaged (as opposed to simply reading news or whatever) it works well enough (provided you don’t get tired of the games), but I remain highly skeptical of any claims the games and puzzles actually increase intelligence.
But it wouldn’t hurt to get my ass busy with some logic puzzles, math problems and so on. Get the old gray cells active.