Honest answers about what brain training does, what it does not, and how this site works
Questions we get asked most, answered without the marketing. Where the honest answer is "the evidence is weaker than people think", that is what you will find here.
Brain training games reliably make you better at brain training games. That is called near transfer, it happens quickly, and nobody disputes it.
Whether that improvement spreads to unrelated abilities — better memory in general, a higher IQ — is far transfer, and it is the claim the industry is built on. The larger and better-controlled studies have mostly failed to find it.
What is well supported is an association between staying mentally and socially active and better cognitive ageing. That is an observational finding, not proof that any particular game causes the benefit, but it is a perfectly good reason to make a habit of something you enjoy.
Everything is free. No account, no email, no download, no premium tier. Core value never requires signing in, and it never will.
Scores and streaks are stored in your own browser, not on our servers, which is why clearing your browser data clears them and why they do not follow you between devices.
The site is funded by advertising and by affiliate links on the buying-guide and shop pages, which are marked. Nothing you play is affected by either.
Every game works on a phone, a tablet and a computer. A few — Audio Tone Memory, Audio Word Memory, Sound Direction — need sound, and Sound Direction specifically needs headphones to work at all.
There is a search on every page that covers every game and article, and a site map listing everything in one place.
They reliably improve your performance on the games themselves. Evidence that this transfers to general cognitive ability is weak and contested, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
Five to ten minutes daily beats an hour once a week. These tasks degrade quickly with fatigue, and spacing is what makes practice stick.
Yes, entirely. No account, no email, no download, no premium tier, no locked games.
No, and you cannot — there are no accounts. Scores are kept in your own browser.
For working memory, Digit Span and Number Memory. For everyday recall, Word Recall and Audio Word Memory. Pick one and play it daily rather than sampling all four once.
Many are. Matching Pairs, Balloon Pop, Biggest Number, Money Count and the word games all work well for children, and none of them require fast reflexes.