What makes one person different from another? Well, besides their identity, it’s their ability to critically analyze everything and make a decision that carves a distinct life for everyone, making them unique from one another. Intellectual standards also come in handy when looking forward to determining the extent of critical thinking in an individual.
Critical thinking is one trait that is used in many areas of life. From observing, and forming judgment to decision making, enhancing critical thinking skills has become imperative for adults. Apps can be an effective option to get started with this journey of developing such crucial life skills.
Hence, in this post, you will find the various apps that can help adults build and enhance their critical thinking skills.
The concept of critical thinking
Critical thinking is known as the process of actively and successfully conceiving, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating knowledge as a basis for belief and action. It requires intellectual discipline.
A Critical thinker with practice:
- raises important issues and articulate them simply and clearly
- collects and evaluates pertinent information, effectively interpreting it using abstract concepts.
- reaches well-thought-out findings and solutions, evaluating them in light of pertinent criteria and standards
- successfully collaborates with others to find solutions to challenging situations
- thinks critically about other schools of thought like recognizing and evaluating. Their underlying presuppositions, implications, and application of thoughts into actions also fall under the concept of thinking into practice.
Applications useful for critical thinking amongst adults
1. Lumosity
It is a popular brain training app developed by neuroscientists. Its purpose is to boost memory and attention span while encouraging problem-solving behavior and divergent thinking to think of flexible solutions.
The cognitive training program on Lumosity is a fun, engaging method to exercise your brain and learn more about how the mind functions. The Lumosity application, which is used by more than 100 million people worldwide, consists of games that challenge players’ memory, speed, flexibility, and problem-solving skills.
This app helps train adults into a more critical state by taking their time and utilizing it into solving puzzles through this app, the critical thinking quality will flourish among them.
App link : Play store | App store |Web app
2. Elevate
It is a personalized app to train the brain and consists of daily game workouts. It provides a calendar that is easy to access and allows you to log your workout conveniently to track your performance and progress.
The app consists of 30 cognitive and concentration games relevant enough to help progress critical thinking and provides adaptive difficulty progression.
A very important aspect that this app provides is what medical professionals have been telling us since the inception of time, exercise. Be it physical or mental, this app helps in scheduling exercises well in advance for a busy adult.
App Link: Play store | App store | Web app
3. Brain it on
It is a physics-based puzzle game that offers different types of brain stimulation through challenges and puzzles. It asks the user to solve different puzzles by drawing on the screen, and the purpose is to encourage divergent thinking and problem-solving.
It is a highly rated app under the recommendation for mental skills.
“Brain it On!” features an arcade-style appearance and launches the main game as soon as the app is opened. The game will begin with simple challenges like drawing a straight line, tilting a form in a certain way, etc., similar to other casual puzzle games. Making the most of the early levels is crucial because as the game progresses, the riddles will become increasingly challenging.
App link: Play store | App store | Web App
4. Peak
This app is available on both Google Play and iOS App Store. It provides more than 45 brain training games that combine technology and neuroscience and aims to improve memory, attention, problem-solving, and mental agility through fun.
In addition, the app improves users’ performance by providing feedback after each game and provides insights and statistics based on the user’s age and profession.
Three times a week of practice is advised by the developers. Each exercise adapts to the user’s proficiency level and concludes with feedback. The basic premium edition of Peak Pro gives unlimited access to all 40+ exercises, along with individualized training sessions and comprehensive feedback (mainly percentage and graphs on progress), whereas the basic free version only permits a small selection of randomly chosen daily activities.
App Link: Play store | App store | Web app
5. Brainwell
This rather cool app provides over 50 games to stimulate different parts of your brain. It includes journals like puzzles, teasers, mind tests, and more. It functions to improve memory, attention span, focus, and IQ.
With over 1 million downloads, it promises to help with problem-solving, attention, visual skills, and language. Designed with neuroscience knowledge, it challenges the users and helps sharpen one’s mind.
App Link: Play store | App store
6. Chess
This game app has been a favorite for adults for a long time. The online version of chess, similar to the offline game, helps an individual develop foresight and perseverance. It tests an individual’s sportsmanship and helps sharpen thinking and decision-making skills.
Chess is bound to improve an individual’s cognitive skills, attention span, and memory along with logical thinking and comes with many more benefits.
This app and its cognitive enhancing power are known to the entire world, probably the most adult-friendly among the lot, this app is an amazing productive time-pass for busy professionals out there.
App link : Play store | Web app
7. Brainturk
The printer is a mobile and computer-based app that provides over 40 games and meditation techniques based on neuroplasticity principles. These games help improve attention span, language skills, focus, short and long-term cognitive memory, and tools to address psychological barriers.
Neuropsychological researchers have used these games as they were shown to increase the strength of brain muscles and memory speed and provide complex stimulation to an individual’s brain. Some of the games include the flanker task, Stroop task, picture back, tracking objects, revised space fortress, and math games.
App link: Play store | App store | Web app
8. Geist
Geist is another brain training app designed to keep the brain functioning actively. It is based on neuroplasticity and developed by experts and has also been used in the research community.
It provides 24 games with more than 720 levels that help in improving brain connectivity, memory, logic concentration, reaction, and mathematical skills. It also provides workouts that a personalized win individual, cater to their curated goals, and allows tracking of the progress based on scientific testing.
It also provides a series of meditation that helps in brain training. Geist provides a study of your performance following a brain training session. It compares you to other Geist users and identifies some of your cognitive strong points. You can unlock new tests by using the Geist points you earn by doing well on these exercises. This is a wonderful addition because it makes sure users are proficient before moving on.
App link: App store
Conclusion
It is important that we view the world from a subjective point of view; for that, we require information and the ability to identify assumptions and arguments from hardcore facts and truth. Critical thinking aims to reason and inquire about creating and updating one’s opinions based on solid arguments. Being able to think critically is practical for us as individuals since it is important in a world that prioritizes the ability to manage information.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,