Nothing in this subject has one impact. The same event means different things at personal, local, national and global scale, and a question that asks about impact is asking at which of the four.
One piece of false health advice followed up four scales — the facts stay the same, the meaning does not.
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What changes as you go up
- Who is responsible. At personal scale nobody is; at national scale it is somebody's job.
- What counts as evidence. One story at the bottom, a measured rate at the top.
- What can be done. Advice at the bottom, law in the middle, only agreement at the top.
- Who is harmed. The harm is almost never at the scale where the decision was taken.
The mismatch that causes most digital problems: Decisions are made at company scale, harm lands at personal scale, and the only body that can act sits at national scale. None of the three can see the whole thing.
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Alongside how big, ask how long and how far. A change can be small and permanent, or huge and over in a week, and those need different responses.
| Dimension | The question | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | How many people? | Decides who can act |
| Time | How long does it last? | Separates a shock from a shift |
| Reach | How far does it travel? | Decides whose rules apply |
Real-world examples you can name
Global Fishing Watch — launched 2016
Satellite tracking signals from vessels are processed to map fishing activity worldwide and published openly, so protected areas can be policed by anyone with a browser rather than only by patrol boats.
Who it affected: Coastal states without navies, and fleets that relied on not being watched.
Agbogbloshie e-waste site, Accra — scrapyard cleared July 2021
A scrapyard where imported electronics were stripped and cables burned to recover copper, releasing lead and dioxins. It became the standard example of e-waste exported from rich countries to poor ones. Authorities demolished much of the site in 2021; the trade moved rather than stopped.
Who it affected: Workers and nearby residents exposed to heavy metals and smoke.
How this is tested — almost every extended question improves if you say at which scale your claim holds. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — structured question
- Part c: evaluate the impact of a described change
- Part b: explain who is affected by something
Paper 2 — source-based question
- Q4: synthesise sources written at different scales
- HL Paper 3: recommend an action at the scale that can deliver it
The trap: “impacts on society”: Society is four different things here. A claim that is true nationally is often false personally, and saying so is a mark.
Explain one reason why the impact of a technology differs at different scales.
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.
To what extent can a single country regulate a global digital platform?
Model answer plan
See the mark-by-mark plan — for / against / judgement, with marking guidance — in study mode.