Lifelong learning in the age of artificial intelligence: Reconstructing learning in the YouTube ecosystem

This study aims to examine how the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and lifelong learning is interpreted within the YouTube ecosystem through the perspectives of content creators and user comments. The study adopts the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) as its theoretical framework to explore how different social groups construct and negotiate meanings attributed to AI. Employing a qualitative research design, the dataset consists of 11 YouTube videos selected according to predetermined criteria and 2,250 user comments associated with these videos. The data were analysed using qualitative content analysis and metaphor analysis. The findings revealed five main themes: adaptation and inevitable transformation; threat perception: crisis, fear and uncertainty; instrumentalization; economic and market-oriented learning; and meaning, wisdom, and learning in everyday life. The results indicate that lifelong learning is not explicitly defined in YouTube content; rather, it is implicitly reconstructed through discourses emphasising adaptation to change, continuous skill development, effective use of AI, economic value creation and the enhancement of critical thinking. Furthermore, AI is not a single-dimensional technology but a phenomenon that is simultaneously interpreted as an opportunity, a threat, a learning partner, and a driver of social transformation. Overall, the findings suggest that YouTube functions not merely as a platform for information sharing but as a dynamic digital learning ecosystem in which meanings attributed to artificial intelligence and lifelong learning are continuously produced, negotiated and reconstructed through interactions between content creators and users.Adopting a qualitative research design, the study draws on a dataset consisting of AI-related YouTube videos and user comments posted on these videos. The data were analyzed through discourse analysis and metaphor analysis within the theoretical framework of SCOT. The findings reveal that lifelong learning is rarely articulated as an explicit concept; instead, it is implicitly constructed through discourses of adapting to change, keeping up, and continuous self-development. User comments portray AI both as a tool that facilitates and accelerates learning and as a source of concerns related to superficial learning, dependency, and professional uncertainty.