I've been waiting to post my blog so I could train my brain this week through daily workouts on luminosity.com. My scores overall seemed to variety quite a bit. I did notice that my 'workouts' in the evening scored much higher than my morning workouts. The range of available games is impressive and I wonder if physical therapist use this website or others like it to engage patients. I'm not sure I'd use the games to workout a young healthy mind - I don't really have a solid reason behind this thought so it could easily be persuaded to change, I guess I hope children's play would develop the same skills in a more organic and natural way of evolving. I suppose I might be one of those people who needs to get away from the computer more often, but all of my classes are online right now.
The Luminosity tasks were each interesting, I'm curious to know more about their development and the intended focus of each task. If I want to increase my memory, why does the card game of Memory seem to be a favorite but is one game I least enjoy. I do like that type of variable on Luminosity, I couldn't alter my workouts since I was using a free trial. Being able to rate the tasks and setting my preferences for tasks that I'd like to try again over time would be very helpful. Everyone learns differently and the website appears to offer many options but I'm not sure if those options can be controlled by a paying member.
Being able to participate in more than three tasks would also be nice, even more than the five allowed for paying members. Some days I feel better and I like to take advantage of 'good' physical and mental health days. Other days are a total loss due to frustration or a change in the weather causes body aches. I've placed pressure on myself this week to complete training every day so maybe I should have started soon so I could skip a few days. The tasks only took a few minutes though and they are a fun diversion.
I do feel like the tasks were a diversion, something new to try besides watching TV, reading homework, or other mindless activities available online. I wondered a few times how different these tasks may be compared to video games and the idea that our society views Luminosity tasks as more educational while video games are seen as a waste of time and played by many lonely misfits. Or the view that video games have a link to violence. None of the Luminosity tasks were violent by any means, but once we start trying to train our brain it feels like there is thin line between education and learning versus wasting time and resources.
I also found some other "brain games" online but those tasks were similar to jigsaw puzzles, dragging tiles into place to create an image, or simple math games. The Luminosity tasks felt much more mature and less like a lack of time spent on each one, but I'm not sure why even though I've been asking myself that question all week.
Overall I have to say that it is wonderful to find games online similar to the games I planned as a child. Perhaps their marketing of food, colors, and old fashion competition still works to bring people together. The Luminosity tasks do not bring people together, at least not in the trial version, since each individual is working on their own tasks. Perhaps we become better people and that will bring us to new people in the future.
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