I Have a History Degree, and Nibble Still Has Things I Studied

*Disclosure: This story was created in partnership with Nibble. The author is a real Nibble user who received a free gift in exchange for sharing their honest experience. Views are their own; individual results vary.

Before Nibble, I didn't really have a specific way to keep my general knowledge fresh, aside from the occasional debate with a friend about current real-world topics that overlap with historical themes. 

When it came to exploring completely new subjects, I often found it overwhelming. There was no clear direction or easy way to narrow down such broad areas of knowledge.

That matters more than it sounds like it should. I read and research heavily for a living. I have a history degree, I write on Substack, I'm working on a novel, and I research the paranormal on the side. 

Reading is not the problem. The problem is that everything I read is pointed at something I'm already working on, and the subjects I've never touched stay untouched because I don't know where to start with them.

That's part of why finding Nibble worked so well for me. 

"It gives me a way to challenge myself and see how much I remember from subjects I've studied before, while also allowing me to explore completely different areas of interest in manageable chunks."

🧠 Instead of feeling like I need to figure out where to begin with an enormous subject, I can start with one Nibble lesson and see where my curiosity takes me.

How long I spend on Nibble each day varies, but typically in the morning I'll complete one or two lessons, which take only a few minutes. That's the whole commitment. 

I've seen other people build the same slot into a packed morning, and the reason it survives in mine is that it doesn't compete with anything.

Honestly, what makes it easy to decide what comes first is that, in order to maintain a Nibble streak, you have to complete a lesson every day or you lose it. 

There aren't streak freezes like there are with Duolingo, so Nibble has become the first thing I do in the morning to prevent forgetting to complete a lesson throughout the day. 

It has been really satisfying to watch my streak grow while also seeing a healthy habit form. Apparently, I'm not the only one who ended up looking forward to that part of the morning.

I don't think stacking Nibble and Duolingo together has necessarily changed how much I retain, but I do think stacking one healthy habit after another helps reinforce those habits.

I've noticed that if I complete a Nibble lesson, I'm more likely to follow it with a Duolingo lesson. From there, I can move into whatever writing or college coursework I have planned for the day.

I would say it sometimes helps prime my mindset for whatever I'm doing afterward. If I'm moving into schoolwork, it can feel almost like a warm-up exercise for my brain. 

If I'm writing afterward, sometimes a lesson on a topic I'm unfamiliar with will spark my curiosity, and I'll end up digging deeper online to learn more about it.

There were a few lessons that brought me back to assignments and topics I explored in depth while studying history. 

My concentration was in American history, so many of the lessons spanning the 1900s through the 1990s brought back much of what we analyzed. It wasn't necessarily one fact, but more of the topics being discussed.

For example, the lesson on the Berlin Wall reminded me of the misunderstandings and miscommunications that led to its unexpected opening in 1989. 

The lesson on New Deal Dreams brought me back to Roosevelt's New Deal and, more specifically, how American society at the time viewed his response to the Great Depression.

The one that actually produced something was the lesson covering daily life during the Dust Bowl, which sparked an idea for a story I'm currently writing for my Substack. I had studied the Dust Bowl previously, but my focus had been more on its causes and effects. 

This lesson prompted me to think about something different: what was it actually like to live through a dust storm? That question inspired me to start writing a piece that explores the experience from that perspective.

I want to be clear about what Nibble is and isn't doing here. I would describe Nibble more as a personal tutor that feeds my intellectual side rather than something that has changed how I approach research for my writing.

I already have a research process that works well for me, so that hasn't really changed. What Nibble does sometimes do is prompt me to research a topic more deeply simply because a lesson made me curious. 

For example, one lesson mentioned Joan of Arc. I found her story interesting enough that afterward, I wanted to learn more about her beyond what was covered in the lesson. 

So Nibble hasn't necessarily changed how I research, but it has occasionally given me new reasons to explore something I might not have otherwise.

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Philosophy is an area I've been curious about. We touched on philosophical themes in some of my history courses, but beyond that, I didn't know much about philosophy as a subject in its own right. 

The lesson on Cynicism was particularly intriguing because I was surprised to learn that the modern meaning of the word "cynic" differs quite a bit from its origins in ancient Greece. I was familiar with the word in its modern sense, but I hadn't realized it originated from an entire school of philosophical thought.

That's the pattern with the subjects I picked purely out of curiosity. You go in with the everyday version of a word or an idea and come out knowing where it came from. Someone else described the same effect after working through thirty art lessons.

Not every unit did that for me, though. After completing the psychology unit, which was surprisingly brief, I found myself wishing there were more lessons exploring the intersections between psychology and the paranormal. 

I was already aware that there were psychologists who also became involved in parapsychology, or people like Sigmund Freud, whose work was in psychoanalysis, but who maintained an interest in subjects such as telepathy and thought-transference. 

One area I find particularly interesting is Freud's concept of the uncanny. Today, I think ideas like the uncanny can offer an interesting psychological framework for examining experiences people describe as unexplained. 

"It doesn't necessarily tell us whether an experience was paranormal, but it gives us another way to explore why certain experiences feel so strange, unsettling, or difficult to make sense of."

My research and writing have already led me down paths where I've explored certain areas of psychology more deeply, so I came into Nibble's psychology unit with more background knowledge than the lessons offered. 

I also hope there will be more in-depth psychology content, and especially lessons that explore some of its less commonly discussed areas, which is still very much on my Nibble wish list.

I think there are two parts to this. The first depends largely on the individual. If you genuinely want to make daily learning part of your life, you have to be willing to make room for it and build the habit. 

Nibble makes that easier because the lessons are short enough that I don't feel like I'm adding another major task to an already packed schedule. If you're currently filling those same few minutes with something else, swapping the scroll for a lesson is a smaller change than it sounds like.

The other part, though, is whether the platform continues to give you a reason to come back. If users don't feel like they're learning something useful or enjoying the experience, the habit will eventually fall off, regardless of how good their intentions are. 

I think it also depends on what you're hoping to get out of the app. For me, I've selected the subjects I'm interested in and am working my way through them.

I've used Duolingo for more than 600 days, and part of what keeps me returning is that there's always something else to do. There are new lessons, features, and different ways to engage with the languages I'm learning.

It's repetitive enough to become part of my routine, but varied enough to keep me engaged. I think that's the balance that makes a daily learning habit sustainable, and it's the standard I hold every learning app I use to.

Two or three minutes a morning got me a Substack piece I wouldn't have written, a philosophy school I didn't know existed, and a streak I don't want to break. That's a reasonable return on the smallest slot in my day.

If you write, research, or study for a living, you already know the problem this article describes. Your reading is pointed at whatever you're working on, and the subjects you've never touched stay that way because there's no obvious place to start.

Nibble covers 35+ topics with 670+ learning bites, built as short text, video, and audio lessons with quizzes, games, and AI-powered chats with historical figures. In practice, that means you can:

• Revisit a field you already studied and find out how much of it stayed with you, the way the Berlin Wall and New Deal lessons did here.
• Start a subject you know nothing about with one lesson instead of a reading list, like philosophy and Cynicism.
• Pick up story angles and research threads you weren't looking for, like a Dust Bowl lesson turning into a Substack piece.
• Keep the whole thing to a few minutes before your work starts.
• Pick the subjects you're curious about and work through them at whatever pace fits your week. 

🧠 Try the Nibble app today and see where the first lesson takes you!