InformationWeek Geekend: Drawing, Singing Makes You Smarter

NEW YORK, Aug. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- If you're looking to add a few extra points on to your IQ score – you know, so you can impress your friends at the next party – you might want to take up drawing, playing a musical instrument, or teaching.

What can playing the trumpet or painting water colors do for your brain? In his latest installment of his Geekend series on InformationWeek, author David Wagner looks at three different studies that seem to suggest that simple activities or teaching what you know to other people can make you smarter in the long run.

What all these activities have in common, Wagner writes, is increasing your observation and concentration skills. By focusing on a specific task, even if your drawing skills rank somewhat south of Picasso, you can improve your ability to recall and better your overall performance.

At work, by learning a task well enough so you can teach it to someone else, you can actually pump up your own brain power. So, get drawing and impress your friends and colleagues.

Each week, Wagner takes an often humorous look at a variety of scientific studies about the convergence of technology and human behavior to see how we're changing our world, and how the world we built is changing us. This week, Wagner draws stick-figures in the name of science. Check it out here.

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SOURCE InformationWeek