Ebooks – a new way to learn

My educational career concluded a few years ago now as I left University. Since then, I have maintained a strong passion for learning. Unfortunately, now I have a really busy work schedule, meaning that if I want to find something new and interesting to read about, I almost have no time at all to do it. Since the purchase of my e-reader, I have made the most of gaining access to thousands of educational books, magazines and journals in the ebook bookstore. I have found that it’s actually quite easy to find pockets of time to read on the train, the bus or on my lunch, and I don’t have to worry about lumbering around a huge textbook!

I recently downloaded a real brain bubbler. I have never studied psychology or the human mind but was fascinated to learn just a little bit about how we thought and worked. The Thinking Fast and Slow ebook by Daniel Kahneman is a fantastic insightful read. According to Dr Kahneman, as humans we have two distinct systems of thought, which together account for every thought process we have. The first system is “fast thinking”. This is the intuitive, instinctive, subconscious thinking we do which means that we react without really engaging our brain, and just complete tasks based on experience or “common sense”. System 2 thinking is when we actually have to engage the brain, and put effort into thinking. This is much slower and we usually have to start this kind of thinking when the first system simply isn’t effective or trained enough to deal with it. Dr Kahneman cleverly explains how each type of thought system can be responsible for some really interesting phenomena in how we react and think.

If you enjoy reading about the mind, I would recommend reading as many different types of authors, and not just academic. The Paulo Coelho Aleph ebook is a great example of how you can really learn a lot about yourself and other cultures without any form of scientific discovery involved. This book covers topics like meditation and reincarnation and is an autobiography of the author.

A good book is one which will let you formulate your own opinion, and challenge what you have learnt.

(Guest Post)