Is intelligence fixed, or can it be improved over time? All depends on your age and how one sees "intelligence," a professor of clinical psychiatry explains in an article Can You Get Smarter by Richard Friedman. Friedman writes, "Starting at age 55, our hippocampus, a brain region critical to memory, shrinks 1% to 2% every year, to say nothing of the fact that one in nine people age 65 and older has Alzheimer's disease." It is not surprising, he says, that a burgeoning brain training industry has developed based on the idea that with a little work people can slow these declines or even make themselves smarter than they were to begin with.
Cognitive enhancement is both "seductive and plausible," Friedman says. Our brains have a property called…show more content… Friedman reports, “It turns out that physical exercise can also improve cognitive function and promote the growth and creation of neurons” (Friedman). Exercising will feed the neurons that will give people the focus and concentration they need. On the other side, we see that stimulating the brain of the children by playing puzzle games, cubes, and trying to do manufacture games as children while they grow up will makes them smarter. Practicing these kind of games stimulates the brain, and wake up the mind. But what happened when the kids don’t receive these kinds of stimulants? They become lazy and think that their “intelligence is unchangeable“ (Friedman). Many people have these kinds of thoughts and that’s why they resort to drugs, because they don’t feel smart enough to do their thing by their…show more content… My best friend used these kinds of drugs, and I have seen her how she actually reacts by the influences of it. She obtains them by a friend who was prescribed or by faking symptoms so her doctor can prescribe them. Smart drugs have become something very popular in the field of academic education. Students can buy them from traffickers, at a very low price, from $5 to $20 a pill. These give them a guarantee of being awake and focus on their studies. “I got a 95. Thereafter, I recalled, I got Adderall capsules the rest of the semester from various classmates. Not in exchange for money, but for tutoring them in proofreading their English papers.” (Ruiz) Many students feel frustrated by not being able to obtain high grades in their grade report, and they will do anything to get those A’s just like how my friend did. To please their parents and to become an “A” student is hard, and many won’t stop until they obtain what they want. Some students just want to have excellent grades to get into a good university and keep their parents proud of them. How students feel if they don’t get good grades, do they feel they are cheating. My friend expressed her selves by saying this; “These kids would get in trouble if they don’t do well in school. When people take tests, it’s immediately, whom am I getting Adderall from? They’re always looking for it” (Ruiz). Even thought