Hi all. This is my first post on this forum.

This may be a somewhat random post, and may just indicate I have vanity issues. But I find that, for someone doing a PhD (started third year of a 3.5 year program) I seem to be rubbish at basic critical thinking. I'm talking about the basic critical thinking puzzles that you find in brain-teaser card packs, and the various puzzles that are shared around social media. I get the wrong answers almost all the time (often due to over-thinking). This is also reflected in how I react to news stories, especially politics, as I all-to-often get swepted into a particular (sometimes ideologically driven) narrative without properly assessing it.

As I said, this is a bit random, has nothing to do with the actual running of a PhD and may just be reflective of vanity issues I have. But the reason these issues bother me, is because as a PhD student/researcher, I feel like I should be good at critical thinking and it often makes me wonder how on earth I managed to get to where I am...