When I first saw those Lumosity commercials on TV, there was something about them that struck me as wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Steve would laugh at me because I would see a Lumosity commercial and immediately start picking it apart. Just look at this woman.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDIQpQqq4MU
Does she look smart? Or what about this gym-loving dope?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zx3RshzbCI
It was more than their dopey appearance, it was the way they all sort of roughly mentioned neuroscience, but in a way…that just felt like bullshit! I mean, why pay for a freaking membership to a website when you could probably get the same effect by solving crossword puzzles, playing board games, reading a book, or stuff like that? I could never get what made these games special. Sure, they told me these games were designed by neuroscientists, but how could they make these games so completely unique, unique enough to be worth paying a subscription?
Well, it looks like I was not off base in my assessment. According to this, 70 researchers all wrote and signed a letter saying that Lumosity and other brain-training apps are overblowing their claims to be able to save us from becoming senile old folks. Even lead scientists of studies Lumosity uses to support their claims are loudly distancing themselves from Lumosity.
On top of that, The FTC accused them of false advertising, and they forked out 2 million! They claim that suit was caused by inaccurate marketing, but after reading the article above, I’m not so sure.
Man, does it ever feel good to be right?!
I didn’t laugh because you were picking the commercials apart. I laughed because you would get so goddamn worked up about it.
Aside. It’s too bad you couldn’t find the commercial with the I wanna say woman who pronounced houses like house is. Hopefully she was a prospective subscriber and not a success story.