Brain Games is a new show on The National Geographic Channel that breaks down the psychology behind why we do the things we do for even miniscule daily occasions. So far, two episodes have been released, hosted by Jason Silva; described by The Atlantic as a “Timothy Leary for the viral video age.” Jason will bring up topics like focus, fear, persuasion, decision-making and neural fitness in the duration of the show which is televised on Monday nights at 9 P.M. Personally, I am a huge fan of this show. Brain Games is supposed to, in a sense, “Hack your brain”. It brings asense of curiosity to the audience. It teaches how the mind works and each episode goes over a different aspect/topic dealing with our brains and our way of thinking, such as: Fear, Persuasion, Motion, and Focus. At first, one will have many questions and doubts about what Jason Silva is saying and wondering if there are any credible studies or sources feeding him the information. There are plenty of experts in various fields of psychology, mostly in cognition, who help out with this show. Jake Hoferer, a junior at Elder High School, has seen the first two episodes of Brain Games. “I was intrigued by the previews so I decided to watch the first episode and I was extremely surprised that I was so easily tricked and deceived by some of the things on the show.” I asked Jake what his favorite part of the show was so far, he responded, “Probably the opening part of the first episode. The host said to count the footballs as they crossed the screen, and I counted 27, I was right, however,there was a scoreboard in the background that read ‘There are 27 footballs, stop counting’ which I failed to see. It was pretty cool to see that the human brain’s concentration can be so strong that we couldn’t notice anything else besides what we were focusing on.” Andrew Holiday, also a junior at Elder, loves this show. I asked Holiday the same question, and he replied with the same example. “The Football one. I couldn’t believe I wasted all that time counting the footballs cross the screen when it said clearly in the back in bright colors that I didn’t need to count and that there were 27 footballs.” Andrew then thought of a different example, oddly enough, involving football as well. “It was the one where it was at a side angle and you were supposed to see if the field goal was good or not, there were cheerleaders that were on the sidelines but I paid no attention to them. I focused on the kick, and when he broke it down, I had found out that three cheerleaders had taken their tops off.” Holiday concluded the interview bytelling me that he couldn’t wait for the next episode. Brain Games may be the hottest show on National Geographic at the moment. Who doesn’t love to have their mind tricked? Humans are so curious, and that is why this show is such a success.Tune in to National Geographic at 9 P.M. on Monday nights to see if you are easily tricked!