We evaluate them by judging how far they caused change, whether that change represents continuity or discontinuity, and how its impacts and implications differ across people, communities and time. This is shared SL and HL content from IB Digital Society subtopic 2.1, Change.
Evaluation requires more than describing what happened. Build a supported judgment through four steps:
| Step | Question to ask |
|---|---|
| Establish context | What conditions existed before the person, idea, object or force appeared? |
| Trace influence | What changed, through which digital systems, and who contributed to the outcome? |
| Judge significance | Was the change an evolution, meaning substantial continuity, or a transformation, meaning significant discontinuity? |
| Compare perspectives | Which people and communities benefited, faced harm or experienced exclusion? |
A useful example is ChatGPT, released publicly by OpenAI in 2022 and therefore postdating the 2022 coursebook. System: It is a generative AI system that processes prompts and produces text using patterns learned from training data. Example specifics: Its rapid adoption affected education, employment and digital media. Impacts and implications: Students gained support for drafting and explanation, while schools faced immediate concerns about authorship and assessment. Future opportunities include personalized learning, but risks include inaccurate output, unequal access and dependence on automated tools. Conceptual analysis: Its significance can be evaluated as an evolution of earlier chatbots and search tools, but also as a transformation in how people create and access information.
A common misconception is that one invention or influential person causes change alone. Digital Society uses systems thinking: outcomes emerge from interactions among designers, users, institutions, economic pressures, regulations and existing social conditions.
In an exam response, the command term evaluate requires you to weigh strengths, limitations and competing perspectives before reaching a supported conclusion. Do not merely list changes or label a concept. Use a specific real-world example and explain why the evidence supports your judgment about continuity, discontinuity and significance.
