Social Dilemma Rhetorical Analysis

623 Words3 Pages

Olivia Laird
Mrs. Fernandez
English 11
February 14, 2023
The Effects of Social Media
Jeff Orlowski, director, and co-writer of the documentary The Social Dilemma argues that social media usage leads to mental health illness. He uses ethos, logos, and pathos to argue his statement. Orlowski’s purpose is to express how social media manipulates people's emotions, views, and behaviors to make more profit. He adopts a disenchanted tone in order to emphasize that readers should be more cautious when using social media and make sure that his adult audience is aware of the effect it can have on their teens.

Orlowski begins his documentary by emphasizing that social media usage leads to mental health illness Orloski conveys his opinion by emphasizing that social media usage leads to mental health illness. Orlowski appeals to the audience using pathos stating that ¨62% of teen girls harm themselves or are sent to a doctor.¨ (Orlowski 2020)In order to make a statement Orlowski uses pathos to allow the audience to build a connection to his idea. By using pathos Orlowski uses the audience's emotions to create an emotional tie to his idea and the audience's personal life. After using pathos to express how he wants the audience to build an emotional tie to his idea Orlowski begins to use …show more content…

In order to express his opinion he uses ethos to convey to the audience other people's opinions on how social media is manipulating users. By using ethos Orlowski is trying to explain to the audience that the system is built against the users. They built algorithms to take advantage of the users by manipulating their minds into wanting to spend more time on social media. Which leads to more profit for the creator. To close the documentary, Orlowski not only uses ethos to convey his opinion but also logos to voice parents' opinions about social