YouTube vs Textbooks: How AI and digital learning are changing student habits

Manish Mohta

Digital learning platforms and artificial intelligence(AI)-enabled education have altered the business models of educational institutions. Educational institutions, including universities, exam bodies, and academic departments, will increasingly use digital platforms for assessments, evaluation, and student lifecycle management. As digital technology becomes commonplace, student interaction and behaviours are correlating with the campus's innovation. One of the most significant examples is that students are increasingly using YouTube to learn, rather than traditional textbooks.

This transformation prompts us to examine how students learn today, what drives students' decisions, and how educational institutions should prepare for an age in which digital systems and automated evaluations become the norm.

By integrating technology into classrooms, educational institutions have created an experience indispensable to learning today. Institutions that use digital examination platforms, online assessment tools, and AI generate an ecosystem that expects interactivity and visual engagement. Students who interact with this type of ecosystem will naturally use platforms such as YouTube. The use of animations, real-time demonstrations, and dynamic visuals will all enhance students' ability to comprehend complex academic concepts. Visual learning complements the digital-first academic systems adopted by educational institutions and enables students to learn more quickly.

YouTube learning is also a result of a stronger focus on autonomy, reflecting an increase in the use of learner-centred models within learning institutions, including online tests and adaptive evaluation tools. The students are accustomed to flexibility in their study schedules. This has created an environment in which YouTube offers students similar flexibility in managing their studies.

Students can pause, rewind, or speed up videos to review the same material from different instructors and create a study path that best fits them. These changes represent a broader shift in the educational landscape, in which the use of technology and digital platforms to automate testing and academic workflows has moved toward providing students with greater autonomy and accessibility.

The rise of global exposure has also influenced students’ YouTube choices, as they seek a more complete picture of how people around the world think and solve problems.  Students want access to people from around the world who can share their knowledge, helping them build their own understanding of how others view issues and how they solve similar challenges on YouTube. This form of global exposure supports academic growth more effectively than a single book or source.

So, where does YouTube become unreliable?

Credibility: YouTube does not provide a formal academic review until years after the material is created; therefore, anyone can post content on YouTube, and what constitutes a credible source varies widely. As students prepare for high-stakes exams, they need a textbook that is comprehensive and reliable more than ever. Textbooks provide the foundation for what we aim to accomplish in educational settings where structure, integrity, and rigour are critical. 

Distraction: YouTube offers new ways to navigate content, but it also creates many opportunities for distraction. As institutions focus on supporting and creating integrity-driven digital environments for managing and controlling academic assessments, platforms such as YouTube prioritise engagement and high-quality content. In some cases, when students navigate content based on platform recommendations or trends, these distractions can make it harder to maintain disciplined academic study habits. The orderly, structured framework within which institutions create courses of study is very different from this, in which predictability and organisation are the result.

Ad-hoc flow: Traditional textbooks continue to offer greater depth and a more systematic progression than video-based curricula (e.g., YouTube). The comprehensive coverage of syllabi, detailed explanations, and logically sequenced topics, all of which are necessary for successful completion of an assessment in a traditional group setting, are incorporated into the textbook design. In contrast, video-based content (as exemplified by YouTube) typically simplifies information and reduces the number of pages a student must view, enabling them to consume it more quickly. The way video-based content is viewed can also create additional challenges in content coverage when institutions use digital systems, such as standardised assessments, to evaluate students' academic performance.

Need for a hybrid model

As more post-secondary institutions adopt AI-based approaches to evaluating student performance and use digital systems to streamline online testing administration, the academic learning ecosystem will shift toward a hybrid model. Students benefit from a hybrid model, as it effectively combines the strengths of both formats. For example, video formats such as YouTube support conceptual clarity and allow students to view new perspectives and ideas, while also providing a comprehensive understanding of a given subject area.

With this hybrid model, students will have access to both the depth and structure of a traditional textbook and the depth and structure of digitally delivered, examination-oriented coursework, thereby supporting balanced, comprehensive academic growth.

Higher learning institutions are also using digital platforms to replace many existing processes. As higher learning institutions incorporate automation, AI assessment tools, and secure digital systems into their processes, students are turning to online resources for ease of use, accessibility, and flexibility.

However, the current academic structure, content storage, and use of physical textbooks will remain significant requirements for formal learning. The most effective learners will be those who can integrate technology intuitively and with mastery by using visual content and structured text to reinforce their knowledge. As education transitions to a fully digital world, the ability to learn and adapt across multiple media and in balanced ways will ultimately distinguish those who earn successful degrees from those who do not.

(The author is the founder of an ed-tech firm)