Lumosity brain games review (the other learning technology)

This is another post in the series on "Tracking: the other learning technology".

• Tracking: the other learning technology (overview article)
• Review of FitBit
• Review of myZeo
• This post: review of Lumosity brain games

What is it and what does it do?

Lumosity offers a variety of short games to boost your brain. Currently over 25 million people have played their games either on the site or via iPhone or Android apps. The games are designed to improve adult's cognitive abilities and keep brains in shape. When you pay for their subscription (about 80 euro/year) you get an e-mail every workday inviting you to play 5 little brain games. You can configure what you want to focus on. The games will contribute to your general Brain Profile Index (BPI) score, and its 5 components:  speed, memory, attention, flexibility and problem solving. You can also compare your BPI with your age group. (I'm in the 87 percentile thanks for asking :-) ). To my knowledge it does not let you share your results on social media or with your friends - but maybe such functionality exists in the 'family subscription' package.

Examples include the card flash games where you need to quickly decide if the card is the same as the previous one, a game "familiar faces" where you serve customers at a counter and need to match their names with their orders, calculation games, and my favorite: the color matching game. Lumosity not only has a good variety of addictive games, it also incorporates other game mechanisms: it calculates your longest 'streak' (= consecutive days you play), gives you 1 up to 3 points after each game completion, keeps a history of your BPI index over time, etc. It is a way to 'quantify' your brain and track evolution over time. 

How good or bad is it?

So how good or bad are these games at improving your brain? There is a whole section on their site on the science behind the games and research conducted on its effectiveness. Truth of the matter is that I don't know. The BPI index they are using is a proprietary measurement of Lumosity. And it is only normal that you get better at playing games the more you play them. Does that mean your cognitive abilities improve? I hope so :-). The only thing I can tell for sure is that the games are fun and addictive. And they have a gamified approach that keeps you coming back to the site. Ongoing research will tell us how effective they actually are and for whom they work best (eg to keep the brain of elderly people fit is another thing than improving the work performance of a 20 year old through better brain capacity).

Actually, I know another thing: Lumosity is great at marketing. Try it out: sign up for a free trial account that gives you a few days access to the games. Not only will they continuously remind you to go for a full subscription afterwards (hint: keep waiting until they offer you a discount), but a lot of web sites you visit will suddenly display Google ads for Lumosity! Earlier this year they raised 31m US$ in capital and the title of that article says a lot: Selling brain games or brain marketing?

Where's the learning?

So where is the learning in quantifying your memory or speed of your brain? It is kinda hard to learn without a brain, right? I'd argue it goes at the core of learning: your learning agility. The better your cognitive abilities, the better you will be at learning, unlearning and relearning stuff. The learning is therefore 'meta': cognitive health and cognitive abilities are the foundation for all other learning to take place.
This only works when applied over time, and that is why it makes a lot of sense to do a few games every day for a couple of months than to do a lot at once. How long do you need to play? Well, if I'm any indication I saw my BPI numbers go up in the first 6 months. But after that the line flattens out.

I'm giving Lumosity 4/5 stars. Their site is very beautiful, the games are well designed, fun and addictive. A big plus is also the ongoing research and revamp of their games. However it remains to be seen how effective they are and for who (nobody told me "Hey Bert, you are so much smarter this year"), and I was missing social elements (publish the results on your social networks or compare with friends you invite) and I am especially missing the 'open' element. The site is very closed and does not have APIs to allow other sites to build upon or combine this data with other tracking numbers.