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Rhetorical Analysis
In the TED talk, “How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media” Luis Von Ahn
explores ways through which learning can be tweaked to achieve the same levels of addiction as
social media platforms such as; TikTok and Instagram (Ahn). Delivered on April 2023, he
believes that education does not bring equality between the poor and the rich. He thinks that rich
people get high-quality education making them richer whereas poor people get low-quality
education making them less profitable, thus expanding the financial inequality gap. He values
high-quality education and has developed techniques for availing quality education for everyone
through smartphones. Luis's purpose for the TED talk is to enlighten his audience on these
techniques, backed up by a track record in Duolingo, a smartphone app that teaches people
multiple foreign languages. He builds on to this purpose by utilizing captivating storytelling
skills, rhetorical appeals, and perfect audience engagement to deliver his message. This essay
seeks to establish a rhetorical analysis of the TED talk by; analyzing the speaker, his purpose and
audience, context and voice, visual elements, and the talk’s effectiveness.
Luis Von Ahn was born on 19th August 1978 in Guatemala and has since grown and
overcome his poor background to become a renowned Computer Science Lecturer at Carnegie
University (NAFSA). He is also a founder of multiple successful computing ventures such as;
CAPTCHA, reCAPTCHA, and Duolingo (Siegler). He considers himself lucky for having
received a high-quality education that propelled him to become successful despite his poor
background. He was raised by a single mother who devoted all her resources to ensure that he
got the best education, despite coming from poverty-stricken Guatemala (Ahn, 1:19). As a result,
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Luis understands the importance of high-quality education in bridging the gap between the poor
and the rich. He sees an opportunity in using smartphones to make learning as addictive as social
media. Given the success of his techniques at Duolingo, he cements himself as the best speaker
for this TED talk.
The TED talk, “How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media” by Luis Von Ahn
is addressed to a broad audience. At the time of its shooting, the immediate audience was
everyone who was in attendance at the TED2023 event. The subsequent upload of the TED talk’s
recording to multiple online streaming platforms extends the audience far beyond the scope of
the physical event. In addition to the TED2023 attendees, the general public constituted of
individuals seeking to adopt addictive learning methods also forms part of the audience.
Professionals, in the education sector also form part of the audience, as Luis shows a way of
revolutionizing education by letting only the rich pay for high-quality education and
subsequently making it accessible to everyone, including the poor. The audience also includes
fellow computer scientists, as it shows ways that computing can be used to bring equality by
making high-quality education accessible to everyone.
Luis has a main purpose and several others for leading the TED talk. The key purpose for
Luis is to teach the world that there are techniques that can be used to make learning using
smartphones as addictive as using social media. Having been brought up in Guatemala, a country
he describes to be poorer than even Mexico, he feels the need to avail quality education to the
poor for financial improvement (Ahn, 0:38-0:46). Additionally, he also seeks to make it known
that only good quality education bridges the gap between the poor and rich. This can be seen
whenever he explains that rich people get quality education which further improves them
financially whereas poor people remain poor due to poor education (Ahn, 0:56-1:13). He also
seeks to inform his audience that the rich should pay for quality education for everyone as
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evidenced by Duolingo’s “freemium” model (Ahn, 4:56-5:09). Lastly, he also needs people to
learn a new language using Duolingo as evidenced by his begging closing remarks (Ahn, 11:46-
11:53)
. The context of the TED talk was influenced by several factors that spun multiple areas
including; Cultural Climate, the Rise of TED talks, Luis’s success on Duolingo, and
Technological Advances. At the time of this TED talk, there were multiple State-level initiatives
ongoing in the American Education sector that contributed to the cultural climate. For example,
several proposed funding initiatives were seeking to better areas such as; K-12, Post Secondary
Education, and Teacher staffing at the time of the talk (NGA). Additionally, TED talks were on
the upsurge as a convenient method of delivering messages on a global scale. As a result, Luis’s
talk was featured among the most popular in 2023 (TED). As the founder and CEO of Duolingo
Luis had also experienced lots of success as the app was globally the most used for learning
purposes, cementing his credibility (Ceci). Lastly, the increased penetration of internet
connectivity and the rise of users utilizing smartphones also influenced the talk, as smartphones
emerged as a convenient way of conducting learning (Ceci).
Luis extensively makes use of rhetorical appeals to help deliver his message to his
audience effectively. He employs rhetorical pathos by introducing himself as one coming from
Guatemala, a very poor country commonly confused with Guantanamo, a prison (Ahn, 0:06-
0:17). This introduction emotionally captures his audience as it would require an incredible feat
for one to grow in Guatemala and end up giving TED talks at a global stage. By stating that
education cannot salvage the poor, he captures the attention of his audience by making them
inquisitive about this contrary belief (Ahn, 0:55-1:01). Luis also makes use of ethos; he cements
his credibility as a professional in the education sector whenever he mentions that he was a
lecturer at Carnegie University when he co-founded Duolingo with his PhD Student, Severin
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(Ahn, 1:53-2:02). Mentioning that he is a Computer Science lecturer and pointing to one of his
successful students gives him the moral authority to talk about ways to make education better.
Lastly, he also utilizes Logos perfectly by stating that Learning using smartphones was the most
cost-efficient method available for their teaching initiative as building schools is expensive Ahn
(3:47-4:03).
Luis also makes extensive use of his narrative voice and visual elements to speak out his
ideas. He heavily uses the narrative voice to explain his background, evidenced by the simple
choice of words he employs to portray poverty-stricken Guatemala and paint its position near
Mexico (Ahn, 00:00-00:28). He also employs visuals in showing the position of Guatemala in
the map and how it differs from Guantanamo (Ahn, 00:22). While talking about education he
portrays an image of books and a pencil to resonate with his message. He portrays the diversity
of Duolingo learners across the globe by projecting an image with objects of different sizes and
colors corresponding to the learner base for different nations (Ahn, 2:48). At the close of his
Talk, he projects a frowning Duolingo owl to help persuade people to learn from his app (Ahn,
2:48). Combined with other rhetorical elements, Luis not only convinces me but also his entire
audience on how smartphones provide a better place for education dissemination for all
irrespective of one’s financial background.
In conclusion, this essay sought to perform a rhetorical analysis of the TED talk, “How to
Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media” by Luis Von Ahn. It has explored the speaker's
background, audience, purpose, context, rhetorical appeals, visual elements, and voice. It has
established that the speaker utilized a multifaceted approach to effectively deliver his message as
evidenced by the multiple examples cited across the entire TED talk’s YouTube recording.
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Works Cited
Ahn, Luis. “How to Make Learning as Addictive as Social Media | Luis Von Ahn | TED.”
YouTube, 26 Oct. 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6FORpg0KVo.
Ceci, Laura. “Annual Number of Mobile App Downloads Worldwide 2023 | Statista.” Statista, 5
Apr. 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/271644/worldwide-free-and-paid-mobile-app-
store-downloads. Accessed 20 July 2024.
---. “Most Popular Language Learning Apps Worldwide 2024, by Downloads.” Statista, 4 Mar.
2024, www.statista.com/statistics/1239522/top-language-learning-apps-downloads.
NAFSA. “Luis Von Ahn.” NAFSA, www.nafsa.org/people/luis-von-ahn.
NGA. “State Education Trends for 2023.” National Governors Association, 20 Apr. 2023,
www.nga.org/news/commentary/state-education-trends-for-2023.
Siegler. TechCrunch Is Part of the Yahoo Family of Brands. 12 Apr. 2011,
techcrunch.com/2011/04/12/duolingo.
TED. “The Most Popular TED Talks of 2023 | TED Talks.” TED Talks,
www.ted.com/playlists/839/the_most_popular_ted_talks_of_2023.
