Harmful Effects of Video Games

The author of the article “Harmful Effects of Video Games” uses pathos to try to reach the audience of parents by telling them what harm video games can do to their children.

Parents are concerned about their children’s development, sometimes to excessive paranoia. If my mother saw this article, she would never let her children play video games again, and I’m sure there are many mothers who would be the same way.

Word choice is one way the author tries to appeal to the audience. To create a sense of alarm in parents and loved ones of video game playing children, the author uses wording such as “it has pervaded the world of child entertainment” (p 1) and “put children in the risk zone for developing aggressive thoughts and behavior”.

Death is an emotional subject for anyone, and so the mention of it at the beginning of the third paragraph in the sentence, “Violence and aggression depicted in video games, if practiced in the real world, can cause serious injuries and even death.”

The next sentence concerns the loved ones of the gamers because it mentions that a child who plays video games is less likely to have empathy for others.

This article also emotionally appeals to women because the end of the third paragraph reads, “Another important harmful effect of video games is that it can affect a child’s perceptions about gender roles, as women are often portrayed as the victim or the weaker person, in many of these games”.

The author does a very excellent job using word choice and audience targeting to create pathos and persuade his audience of the harmful effects of video games.