I read an article from The New York Times called "Do Brain Workouts Really Work? Science Isn't Sure" written by Tara Parker-Pope. The article talks about these websites such as Luminosity where for $14.95 a month, you can "'train' your brain to stave off mental decline". Most of the brain fitness businesses have been focused to help kids with attention-deficit issues and improving memory and academic performance in healthy children and adults. However, "the science of cognitive training has not kept up with the hype".
Dr. Murali Doraiswamy, director of the neurocognitive disorders program at the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences states in the article that the majority of the advertising for these "brain games" go beyond the data. More studies would need to be conducted to before concluding "it's prime time". The past several years, studies have shown that skills are improved however, these skills do not seem to be transferred to other tasks. Other studies have been more encouraging however.
Before reading this article, I was not aware of the controversy of whether these brain workout websites are really beneficial or not. I really enjoyed this article and found it very interesting. The article was very well written and the author got her point across to the reader. This article was easy for the reader to understand and the author did a great job overall.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/do-brain-workouts-work-science-isnt-sure/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=science&_r=0
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I thought Alexa did a great job of finding a very different and interesting article. She showed how these brain games that are said to “stave off mental decline” are not really proven to work. She also gave the reasons why these things are said to work which was good information to know for the article.
ReplyDeleteThe summery could have used more information about what results these games have had in staving off these illnesses. It also could have used information about if these games worked in the ADD patients.
I didn’t realize that these claims that these brain game services boast about don’t have any real basis. This was very interesting. Nice job Alexa.
The article Alexa found was very interesting and the title immediately caught my attention because I didn't know what these brain workouts were. She did a great job of making the review as short but detailed enough for the reader to know what they're reading about. Also, I think she did a good job of bringing in direct quotes from the actual article.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the article could have used more supporting details after a statement, such as when Alexa said that the brain fitness businesses helped both children and adults with improving memory and "academic performance" she could have then followed it with how the businesses did it. The same goes with when she said that "other studies were more encouraging".
Overall, Alexa captured the readers’ attention and gave a good overview of the article and her opinion of the article. This information is new to me, so now I know something new.
Alexa did a great job finding an interesting article to review. I did not know about the controversy about this, but now that I read the review and article I found that I now have a very clear understanding of what is going on. I think Alexa did a great job of putting nessasary details in her review, as well as incorperating direct quotes from the article.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the review was very well written and interesting, I felt like Alexa could have made it a little bit longer by incorperating more supporting details. I think she could have also put in some more direct quotes from the article.
overall, Alexa did a great job picking an interesting article that was appealing to the reader. She gave a good summary of the article and a good opinion. I enjoyed reading this.
Alexa did a really great with this review because she was very detailed in the summary. I really liked how she gave the price for the games and gave both sides of the argument. I was also very impressed by how well the review flowed together.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Alexa could've gone into more detail about what the brain-workouts actually are. It also could've been more detailed about how this issue/topic relates to others.
I was really surprised by how expensive it is to be signed up for these websites. I was also impressed by how easily Alexa incorporated quotes from the text into the review. Good job Alexa!!!
I thought that Alexa did a wonderful job! She found the most interesting article possible. I always myself had wondered about brain workouts but I wasn't aware of all the dispute over them. I thought it was very smart she included both sides of the argument so the reader better understood the situation.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I thought Alexa could have added was a more detailed overall summary to the article I thought that it lacked a little bit of background information that could have been very helpful to the reader.
Alexa did a great job it was a really interesting article that she chose and she obviously took the time to find it. She was able to make a jam packed current event full of interesting facts.
I read Alexa’s review for the article “ Do Brain Workouts Really Work? Science Isn’t Sure,” by Tara Parker- Pope. I think Alexa did many things nicely in her review. First, she explained both opinions that have input for this discussion. Secondly, Alexa did a very nice job using quotations from the article and pieced them nicely into her review as they were well cited. Lastly, she really helps us relate the article to our own lives and to the problems some people face everyday.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I think Alexa could have done better is in her analysis of the article told us a bit more about how the author could improve as well as what she did well. Another thing that could make her review stronger is to maybe cite the article in MLA format with the date etc. so it is easier for us to tell more information about the actual article.
Something that really stuck in my head from reading Alexa’s review is that makers of these websites such as Luminosity actually created these sites for the point of trying to help train children’s brains or at least help them focus more, I think if more research were put into these sites they could possibly help people.