Abstract:

With the opening of chatGPT to the wider public, its use in the context of education and learning has been increased. Studies have focused on the use of AI in education for personalising learning, improving students engagement throughout a module and making content more accessible to diverse learners (Garzón et al., 2025; Nuñez Portilla et al., 2025). However, researchers have also identified risks from the over-reliance on AI, such as reduced creativity and dependency issues (Vieriu & Petrea, 2025; Amigud & Pell, 2025). While the main focus was academics channels, teachers, students, academic institutions, this work takes a unique lens, by focusing on Reddit, as a participatory platform, to examine grassroots attituteds towards these technologies, complementing formal academic discourse. This paper reports on the discourse surrounding the use of AI as a tool for learning and studying, as reflected in Reddit communities. Data were collected from prominent education-related subreddits, including r/AskAcademia and r/ChatGPT, capturing over 300 posts, and 5000 comments from December 2024 to December 20205. Through a thematic analysis of user content across relevant subreddits, the research identifies key themes, patterns in discussions and types of users about AI-powerd study aids, such as chatbots, automated summarization tools, and personalised learning systems.

More specifically, three dominant themes emerged:
(1) practical utility of AI tools - with users sharing their strategies for using AI for studying and learning support;
(2) ethical and legal concerns - where usesrs shared their fears of plagiarism, getting caught, imposter syndrome, and legal boundaries; and
(3) community norms - capturing the users sharing their concerns regarding adopting or not such technologies and features.

Findings will contribute to understanding the socio-technical dynamics of AI adoption in education and inform policy and pedagogical strategies for responsible integration.

Keywords:

AI in education, AI adoption, AI supporting learning.