Now that they're turning 60, the earliest of the baby boomers are being told their brains no longer operate the way they used to. Happily, there's no shortage of marketers who would like to assure them it's an unavoidable part of life ... and they have the software to fix it.
"Brain training" has become the neologism used to describe the mental gymnastics said marketers claim will inhibit brain rot and even hold off Alzheimer's disease.
The jury's still out on the validity of such claims, although all agree if you don't exercise your brain, you're circling the drain. But at least it's fun to play games, and these exercises are not harmful.
One example of turning fun into therapy is by Japanese game maker Nintendo, called Brain Age 2 for its Nintendo DS. Nintendo developed its Brain Age games from a wildly popular book called Train Your Brain: 60 Days to a Better Brain, by a Japanese neuroscientist Kawashima Ryuta. Brain Age 2 features games involving simple math operations, a musical test involving a virtual piano, a word-scramble game, a Tetris-style game and Sudoku puzzles.
The games involve a stylus to write on the Nintendo DS touch screen, or speech - there's a microphone that understands the answers. (beware: bellowing "Rock! Paper! Scissors!" can prove awkward on public transit).
Players store their record in the game's database for 365 days, after which they are kicked off the game, presumably launched back into the world with all neurons firing.
The great temptation, of course, is to play these games at work, justifying them as self-improvement programs.
