stop wasting time on games or at least
bad games you know the ones I'm talking
about the games where you're arranging
candy by color or crossing an
unrealistic number of roads as farm
animals games that are repetitive and
mindless and addictive there are so many
better options games that will help you
improve a skill or help you relax or
just get you thinking with more than
just your lizard brain so here are some
games that you should be playing parents
cover your ears
I'm about to say something controversial
games don't rot your brain in fact there
are games out there that claim to do the
opposite these are games designed to
drain away two of the best brain
training games I've played are elevate
and Lumosity elevate focuses on training
skills like writing reading speaking and
math with beautifully designed minigames
the free version of the app lets you
play three games per day and keeps track
of your progress for the system that
rates your proficiency in each scale so
for example this game is helping me
figure out my percentages in math ten
percent of seven hundred easy that's
seventy but it's going to teach me the
skills I need to build on top of that
and to use tricks that I can actually
apply in real life so one percent of
seven hundred
I'm just got to move the decimal place
over right so it's gonna be seven there
are a lot of things I love about elevate
it's one of the best design apps of
every use it offers practical study
materials and tips to improve your
skills and I never really felt like I
had to pay for the premium features
which unlock every game more data to
track your progress and higher
difficulty levels velocity is similar to
elevate in a lot of ways with its free
tier you get the standard three
minigames per day and just like elevate
these beautifully design games are meant
to help you sharpen a certain set of
skills so for example in this game right
here I am getting these coffee orders
coming in and have to fill those coffee
orders and also make sure that I'm
serving the coffee on time before it
gets burnt so there's a lot of
multitasking here there's a lot of
flipping back and forth you
to make sure you remember all the tasks
in the proper order and it's just
flexing those muscles so that I can
practice those we get better at those
ostensibly we're Lumosity differs is the
skills it chooses to track its minigames
are designed to help you improve things
like memory attention and
problem-solving Lumosity also has over
50 minigames compared to elevates 35 or
so with Lumosity premium version you get
access to all of those games and
advanced tools to track your progress
but again I never really felt like I had
to pay to be clear brain training games
make a lot of claims about improving
cognitive functions but there's not much
evidence that there are long-term
benefits to things like intelligence or
focus studies have found that the only
reason you're improving at these games
is because you're playing them over and
over and over if you practice your free
throws every single day for six months
yeah you probably get good at it that
doesn't make you LeBron James but if the
idea of tracking skills and doing math
stresses you out this next set of games
might be for you these are games
designed to help you chill
[Music]
Erick's oh and I love you are relaxing
puzzle games that you can't just
mindlessly tap away at or EXO's gorgeous
minimalist design and calming music
could fool you into thinking it's a
simple game but in reality it's full of
challenging and hard to master puzzles
the game does a great job of teaching
you the basics but the difficulty
quickly ramps up if number puzzles
aren't your thing
I love Hugh might be for you the premise
is simple move the pieces around to
match the colors and complete the
grading images nothing is more
satisfying than snapping that last piece
into place and completing each puzzle
especially if you're a visual person
both of these games will make sure you
aren't just tap-tap-tapping your screen
like a zombie and they'll actually
challenge you to think but at the same
time they're clean visuals and simple
mechanics can be relaxing and even
meditative
of course if all these fancy schmancy
newfangled games don't interest you you
can always go old school like really old
school the first published crossword was
printed in 1913 but there's a reason
crosswords have stuck around for over a
century they're fun the New York Times
crossword app is the same beloved puzzle
you'll find in the paper the free tier
is really restricted and it doesn't
allow you to play the actual daily
puzzle but you'll still get a daily mini
puzzle and a handful of starter puzzle
packs
bonza is a bit of a twist on the
traditional crossword but it's a
beautiful and addictive game that
scratches that crossword edge
so there you have it a handful of fun
and challenging and productive games
that you'll be better off for having
played so what do you think do brain
training games actually make you smarter
or is it just some sort of fake placebo
effect and let me know in the comments
below what topics I should cover in the
next app directory and make sure you
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watching