Luminosty, users report 1-2 drinks a day and 7 hrs sleep, better on testing…

This is kind of an old story, I searched but didn't find anything.

Global neuro lab
Giant brain-training dataset attracts scientists

f you own a television, a computer or a smartphone, you may have seen ads for Lumosity, the brain-training regimen that promises to sharpen your wits and improve your life. Take the bait, and you’ll first create a profile that includes your age, how much sleep you get, the time of day you’re most productive and other minutiae about your life and habits. After this digital debriefing, you can settle in and start playing games designed to train simple cognitive skills like arithmetic, concentration and short-term recall.

The 50 million people signed up for Lumosity presumably have done so because they want to improve their brains, and these games promise an easy, fun way to do that. The program also offers metrics, allowing users to chart their progress over weeks, months and years. Written in these personal digital ledgers are clues that might help people optimize their performance. With careful recordkeeping, for example, you might discover that you hit peak brainpower after precisely one-and-a-half cups of medium roast coffee at 10:34 a.m. on Tuesdays.

I know people are a little cautious/suspicious/annoyed by marketing data collected, but it's interesting seeing the results from data collected from 100,000 people or 60,000,000 people and comparing the same type of information collected in a clinical study which might only have a small handful involved. While self reporting is not as accurate as a lab tech recording the data, it still should be considered of great value.

Getting people interested on participating on the other hand… Well it seems this company figured out how to.
They essentially made a game for brain teasers to help people test their memory and brain function.

Interesting to note people sleeping 7 hours a night and 1-2 drinks a day performed better than others. Of course that's not definitive proof of anything but definitely thought provoking as most of us know how over sleeping turns us into zombies and under sleeping a jittery mess.

These results don’t mean that good sleep and moderate alcohol make you smarter. Lots of other associations — like the fact that casual drinkers might have richer social lives than both teetotalers and heavy drinkers — might be causing the effect. But the scientists hope these findings will inspire others to dive into the data to sort some of those things out.

www.sciencenews.org...

Interesting to note

reply to post by boncho


I wonder how does that compare to the time before alcohol and time keepers became the norm. My guess is that having the peace of mind to each do according to his biological needs would prove superior. Note that alcohol is an indulgence that in lots of regions of the world many do without as well has having the freedom to sleep (and sleep well) in increasingly diminishing in todays society that presses us to be more "productive" (generate economic value) and out-compete each-other in place of cooperating (see how China entering the WTO has helped the promoting living standards in China and preserved the social state in Europe).

PS: The social state needed a change due to demographics and evolution of times, but it was something that took generations to achieve and benefited not the !%s but the majority of society with high quality of living.

reply to post by boncho


I can't sleep without a drink.
Perhaps I should check out lumosity.

reply to post by Panic2k11

"a time before alcohol and time keepers...". A time when people were bored stupid forever?
No thanks!

double post

I don't put much faith in reporting of data any more. Everything seems to be morphed or outright lies to support the reporter's needs. Most of that need deals with money.

It's sad to see what the world is becoming.

reply to post by Ranong


Stupid people will always be stupid, I crave for a slower rate o f living as many people do today, considering the demographics and medium life span we were intellectually and physically much more productive in the past. Life was harder in general but was more fulfilling, consider past civilization before you compare them to the idiocy we live today.