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Lovella Santos

Instructor Judith McCann

English 1301.127

16 November 2021

The Dangers of Gaming: A Rhetorical Analysis

Long before gaming existed kids would play outside and enjoy their childhood, but once

video gaming was introduced into the world, kids slowly started to lose interest in the outside

world and started playing video games. According to History, video games have been part of the

world “since 1952 when professor A.S. Douglas created the OXO also known as Tic-Tac-Toe”

(The Early Days). Now a days children waste their time playing video games and ignore the

importance of their daily lives. Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL, in an article tilted,

“Computer Game Addiction and Loneliness in Children,” use ethos, logos, and pathos to

effectively persuade their audience by presenting research to show that gaming is not good for

children on a certain age.

The authors of the article Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL are nurses who focus in

psychiatric and public health in Iran. They both study at Eskişehir Osmangazi University,

Eskişehir, Turkey. Which gives credibility, authority and professional expertise to their article in

which they conduct research on children who are primary students in the 4th grade who are ages

9-10. They both aim to “determine the level of computer game addiction and loneliness of the

children” (1505). Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL did not sample the children they

reached the children’s families and made them answer personal information such as “gender,

number of brothers/sisters, education level of the parents, number of hours spent playing games

each day’’ (1505). Both Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL want to see if gaming does
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affect children and if so, they want to see if there is a solution to the problem by persuading them

by using ethos, logos, and pathos.

To begin with, gaming has evolved throughout the years and so do children and not for

the better. Nowadays, games are all about violence win which it affects the social development

of children causing them to be physically and mentally unhealthy. According to Hülya KÖK

EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL, “the social development of the children, who widely use the internet

and spend this time with computer games, has slowed significantly, the self-confidence of these

children is low, whereas their social anxiety level and aggression behavior were found to be

high” (1504). In other words, children who play video games to an extent are affected with

anxiety, depression, become violent and more. It is evident that Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem

ÖRSAL are using pathos and logos as their main rhetorical appeal to persuade and overall show

the audience that the children who play video games have a high risk of getting depression,

anxiety and other mental illnesses. Mentioning these mental health disorders trigger the emotions

of the audience to feel empathy towards the children who play video games for an extended

amount of time.

Furthermore, Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL conduct their research on gaming addiction

and loneliness within families in children. For example, on pages 1506-1507 there are two tables

in which they show Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL’s research. These tables illustrate the

children which the research was conducted on, by showing their suffrage from game addiction

and loneliness amongst families. In the first table on page 1506, both male and female children

revealed similar personal information in which it showed the percentages of loneliness within

their families. This feeling of loneliness was caused by the absences of their family members

which resorted to their escape to gaming. On the second table it is seen the number of hours that
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were played, the number of hours slept, the emotions felt when restricted from gaming, and lastly

difficult encounters. The data shown in the second table shows the dangerous outcomes that

children can experience if they play too many video games. The two tables help the authors’

article by letting them see the records that were taken as well as observe if games do or do not

affect kids. It will also help their audience have a deeper understanding about gaming addiction

and loneliness in families by using logos and pathos as their main rhetorical appeal.

As mentioned before, both tables provide evidence in which the results show that males have a

higher negative effect towards gaming than females. According to Hülya KÖK EREN and

Özlem ÖRSAL, the “outcomes of our study, performed to determine the level of computer game

addiction and loneliness among children, computer game addiction scores for the males are

higher than females” (1508). As stated by Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL, “The average

score that males obtained from loneliness scale were greater than females” (1507). Both Hülya

KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL use logos as their main rhetorical appeal to persuade and show

their audience their results in which they both found out that male children have a higher risk on

game addiction and loneliness within their families than female children. In these two quotes

Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL use logos and ethos to show their audience the results

that were found based on their research by showing them that gaming does affect kids specially

males. Making the audience feel concerned for these children since they are suffering from

addiction and mental illnesses.

In “Computer Game Addiction and Loneliness in Children,” Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem

ÖRSAL mention in their conclusion that “Our study revealed a significant relationship between

students’ game addiction and loneliness, in other words, as game addiction increases, loneliness

increases” (1509). Meaning that whenever children paly video games their loneliness increases
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and in order to get involved in children’s addiction to gaming, a solution must be developed to

resolve these issues. As stated in their conclusion children can attend “a rehabilitating treatment

among school-hospital-family for abnormal cases” (1509) to stop any unhealthy activity that can

be caused by gaming. In both quotes Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL use logos, ethos

and pathos as their rhetorical appeal by showing their audience that their research worked and by

also providing their audience with a solution that can help kids who suffer from game addiction

and loneliness within their families.

In conclusion, gaming is played form all ages from adults to teenagers to kids, but playing to

much video games can cause to not be active and create unhealthy habits such as depression,

anxiety, aggressiveness, social development issues and loneliness. And so Hülya KÖK EREN

and Özlem ÖRSAL use ethos, pathos, and logos in their article titled “Computer Gaming and

Loneliness in Children” to effectively show their audience that gaming can be bad for children

on certain ages. Both Hülya KÖK EREN and Özlem ÖRSAL are not against children playing

video games, but by their research they recommend for children who are young to not play video

games due to the fact that they can be affected with mental and physical health issues.
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Work Cited

History.com Editors. “Video Game History.” HISTORY, A&E Television Networks, 21 Aug.

2018, www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-video-games . Accessed 29 Oct.

2021.

Hülya KÖK EREN, and Özlem ÖRSAL. "Computer Game Addiction and Loneliness in

Children." Iranian Journal of Public Health, vol. 47, no. 10, 2018, pp. 1504-1510.

ProQuest, https://tamiu.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-

journals/computer-game-addiction-loneliness-children/docview/2351545070/se-2 .

Accessed 27 Oct.