After weeks of free video games as art, I figure it’s time to please the masses. Brain games are all the rage these days. The handheld Nintendo DS made a killing with its Brain Age series seemingly because people like to think they are younger than they are even if only in their heads.
Hoping to capitalize on that market are a slew of websites that claim to make you smarter through practice. Good luck with that. For the sake of argument, let’s assume these websites can accurately gauge and improve your intelligence. There is a sick pleasure in finding your place in the stupidity continuum and, in turn, trying to claw your way out of the ditch of dumbness by repeatedly playing memory and reaction-time games.
Here’s a great example of such a brain-testing game free and on the web:
A coworker turned me on to Lumosity, a website that not only offers numerous brain-training games, but also tracks your progress. Most importantly it compares your scores (ie., intelligence) to other Lumosity users. Thankfully I have no qualms about declaring my status on the lower rungs of the intelligence jungle gym, so seeing my numbers in the 40th percentile wasn’t much of a blow. Don’t let the game tell you that “you’re being compared to other people training with Lumosity, your percentile rank isn’t as high as it would be if you were just compared to the general population.” That’s a nice way of saying “Way to go, dipwad.”
The games range from sight tests to memory tests to attention games. Find your niche, and get that score up for some bragging rights. My strength is apparently in the speed department. So, my answers might not be right, but I answer quickly.
A few other tips: Make sure you understand the rules of the game before you play or else you have an excuse that you messed up because you didn’t “get it” instead of actually being less smart than you think. No excuses.
Do not, I repeat, do not share this game with your friends as Lumosity repeatedly recommends. That is a lose-lose situation. Either you are smarter than them and now they think you just wanted to show them that, or you’re dumber than them and you feel stupid.
Additionally, do not spend money on a subscription to this service. Enjoy the free week and be done with it. (Besides, my next blog will be up by then. Convenient.) Paying for things on the internet (be it porn or intelligence games) is antithetical to the very notion of communism that the medium embodies.
Click here to play … urr … think … urr … train. Whatever.
Enjoy.
This article appears in August 21 • 2009.
