Expositions of the capabilities of ChatGPT and other LLMs often feature their ability to summarise or explain or otherwise help you understand challenging existing material such as research papers, articles and textbooks.

When there is something in the text about which you have doubts, questions, or the wish to know more, ChatGPT is often ready with an answer that saves you hours of online research. It can also transform the material into a different form or style on demand, for example by making it briefer, less technical, more or less formal.

But when you are struggling to concentrate using it can actually get stressful by providing you a further source of distraction and an added sense of failure when for instance a condensed or simplified version eludes your focus quite as much as the initial text.

In other words, when your knowledge or time is limited, it can seem like a magic wand. But if your problem is a lack of attention, it is more a curse than a blessing.