Lumosity to Pay $2 Million to Settle FTC Deceptive Advertising Charges for Its “Brain Training” ...
Source: FTC
The creators and marketers of the Lumosity brain training program have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges alleging that they deceived consumers with unfounded claims that Lumosity games can help users perform better at work and in school, and reduce or delay cognitive impairment associated with age and other serious health conditions.
As part of the settlement, Lumos Labs, the company behind Lumosity, will pay $2 million in redress and will notify subscribers of the FTC action and provide them with an easy way to cancel their auto-renewal to avoid future billing.
Lumosity preyed on consumers fears about age-related cognitive decline, suggesting their games could stave off memory loss, dementia, and even Alzheimers disease, said Jessica Rich, Director of the FTCs Bureau of Consumer Protection. But Lumosity simply did not have the science to back up its ads.
According to the FTCs complaint, the Lumosity program consists of 40 games purportedly designed to target and train specific areas of the brain. The company advertised that training on these games for 10 to 15 minutes three or four times a week could help users achieve their full potential in every aspect of life. The company sold both online and mobile app subscriptions, with options ranging from monthly ($14.95) to lifetime ($299.95) memberships.
Read more: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2016/01/lumosity-pay-2-million-settle-ftc-deceptive-advertising-charges
RKP5637
(67,030 posts)LiberalElite
(14,691 posts)for a couple of years and while there were various tables and percentages of different age groups purportedly showing my supposed progress, some of it was kind of fuzzy and I became skeptical. The "progress" wasn't evident in real life away from their graphs.
wilt the stilt
(4,528 posts)in your cell phone. I never put one in and in a company of 400 people I was known for my memory and I'm 64 years old. You have to use your memory at all times. It makes your mind work. I used to memorize the encyclopedia.
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)Tab
(11,093 posts)And, al-Betchya, it's not getting sued directly for that either.
Javaman
(62,435 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)I don't see their ads on the Science Channel anymore where it used to be their ads were a third of the SC ad revenue at least.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)Never claim direct medical benefit without doing FDA trials and approval. That was a massive legal mistake by the company, and people started calling them out on it from day 1.
But it's important to remember that Lumisity's mistake was a legal one. Brain plasticity is a solidly proven medical fact. The more you use your brain, the better it is at being used. Bad at math? Do more math and you'll get better at it. Have trouble matching patterns? Do pattern matching exercises daily and your ability will improve. Bad at remembering numbers? Start repeating a new set of numbers every day, and force yourself to recall all of a weeks numbers at the end of a week. Within a few weeks, you'll get a LOT better at it.
And yes, the research proves that it does the other way too. If you never need to remember numbers, your brains ability to remember number patterns will decline. The same with pattern matching, map reading, or mathematics. Your brain doesn't waste neurons on skills it doesn't use.
Lumosity's basic concept was sound. Force your brain though a series of regular "exercises" to beat cognitive decline or to improve your cognitive abilities. Their problem was that they flouted legal requirements for medical claims, by claiming the unprovable.
I can say, legally and without question, that reading books improves your cognitive ability. That has been solidly proven by science. What I cannot do is sell you a thousand page tome with the promise that reading it will make you smarter or improve your IQ. Why not? Because I can't show the medical benefit from my particular book. There is no way for me to medically demonstrate that my specific book lead to the growth of new brain cells...and that's what is required under American law in order to claim medical benefit.
Lumosity claimed that their 40 games would make you smarter and fight cognitive decline. While they may do so (and while they PROBABLY do, to a degree), that's not a claim they were allowed to make.