Boomer Brains and Smart Media

As a baby-boomer and media psychologist, articles about positive approaches to aging catch my attention. What I love about the baby-boomer generation is that they do tend to go about things with a kind of self-focused all or nothing enthusiasm. According to an article by Katie Hafner “Exercise Your Brain, or Else You’ll…Uh…” there is a surge of anxiety about memory loss among boomers. Being the elephant in the bathtub, demographically-speaking, the boomers’ desire to defy the decline of aging has spawned a industry of brain health products from supplements like Omega 3 oil and Coenzyme Q10 to technology-based products. Nintendo, Posit Science, Mind Fit, luminosity.com, Happy-Neuron.com and SharpBrains are just a few of the software and web-based programs available for boomers who want to maintain peak mental condition.

Hafner writes that these companies and services are targeting the boomer’s fears of aging. I don’t know if it’s fear or stubbornness, frankly. Perhaps equal parts of both. The results is energy, however, and I’m sure that same energy is what turned Crowley and Lodge’s book Younger Next Year into a best seller. (They have one for women, too.) One question is whether the boomers will devote the time to physical and mental maintenance that all these different tools imply. There’s pretty compelling evidence that you can at least slow down the clock. Personally, I have high hopes for a new product by Fablevision and Thinking Moves called Smart Moves. Although targeted at grades 3 through 12, I believe the cognitive benefits of the integrated neuro-activity linking left and right brains that stimulate creativity and learning are the same that stave off memory loss and aging in boomers; and it has the added benefit that it’s fun, you can do it with your kids, and it doesn’t involve doing math in your head.