Every developer I know has the same reflex now. Hit an unfamiliar concept, paste it into ChatGPT, read the explanation, move on.
I did this for months. It felt efficient. Then I noticed a pattern: I was reading a lot of clear explanations and retaining almost none of them. I could follow along perfectly in the moment and then draw a blank a week later when I actually needed the knowledge.
The problem was not ChatGPT. The problem was using a general-purpose conversational tool for a job it was never designed to do.
Here is what I switched to, and why it works better.
The three failure modes of using a chatbot to learn
