5 · HL challenges and interventions

IB Diploma Programme Digital Society HL (first assessed in 2024). Only HL students study the HL extension 高级程度拓展: three big challenges 挑战 of digital society, and the interventions 干预 that try to answer them. The challenges are global well-being (5.1), governance and human rights (5.2) and sustainable development (5.3). Paper 3 (1 hour 15 minutes, 25% of HL) is built on a pre-released brief 预发布简报: some months before the exam, the IB publishes a short text about one challenge. In the exam, you answer questions about an intervention related to it.

In August 2021 China announced a new rule for online games: players under 18 could play for only one hour, from 8 to 9 pm, on Fridays, weekends and public holidays. Game companies had to check every player's real name and age. Many parents welcomed the rule. Many teenagers did not, and some found ways round it by using adults' accounts. Was the rule a good intervention? It depends on what you are measuring: did gaming time fall, was the rule fair to everyone, and did the people it affected accept it? Paper 3 asks exactly these questions.

Must-know for the HL extension:

Global well-being

Well-being 福祉 means living a healthy, satisfying life. Digital systems can support it (online medical appointments, staying in touch with family far away) and harm it (sleep lost to phones, online bullying, comparing yourself with others). Many apps are designed to keep people using them as long as possible, because their income comes from attention and advertising.

Governance and human rights

Governance 治理 asks who makes and enforces the rules. Digital systems cross borders, and the platforms that run them are often richer than many countries. Human rights 人权 at stake include privacy and freedom of expression. Two real laws:

• The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation 通用数据保护条例 (GDPR, 2018) gives people rights over their personal data, such as seeing what a company holds about them. Companies that break it can be fined up to 4% of their worldwide yearly turnover.
• China's Personal Information Protection Law 个人信息保护法 (in force from November 2021) also requires consent to collect personal information, with stricter rules for sensitive information such as health data and children's data.

Sustainable development

Sustainable development 可持续发展 meets today's needs without damaging the future. Digital technology uses electricity (data centres run day and night) and materials (metals mined for phones and batteries), and it becomes waste. The world produced about 62 million tonnes of e-waste 电子垃圾 in 2022, and only about 22% of it was properly collected and recycled (Global E-waste Monitor 2024), and the report expects 82 million tonnes a year by 2030. The digital divide 数字鸿沟, the gap between people who can and cannot use digital technology, is a development question too.

An intervention is a deliberate action on a challenge: a law, a change in a product's design, or a campaign. For any intervention, ask:

A second example, from design: the EU now requires new phones sold there to use the same USB-C charging port (from the end of 2024), so that people need fewer chargers and produce less e-waste.

The IB's sample question asks you to evaluate an intervention "in terms of equity and acceptability":

• Effectiveness 有效性: does it achieve its aim? What does the evidence show, and what can't it show?
• Equity 公平: who gains and who loses? Is anyone left out or harmed more than others?
• Acceptability 可接受性: do the people affected accept it? A limit people choose for themselves (such as a phone's focus mode) is usually more acceptable than one imposed on them.

Worked plan. Evaluate the effectiveness of the 2021 limit on minors' online gaming in terms of equity and acceptability.

• Effectiveness: companies reported much lower play time by registered minors; but some teenagers used adults' accounts, which the figures cannot see.
• Equity: the rule applies to every registered minor in the same way; but teenagers whose parents lend them accounts escape it, and young people who used games to stay in touch with friends lost more than others.
• Acceptability: high among many parents, lower among teenagers, who were not asked; acceptability differs between groups.
• Judgement: effective for most registered players, less effective for the heaviest gamers who find ways round it; a combination of the limit with family agreements and better game design might work better.
• Limits of the evaluation: the evidence comes mainly from the companies and the government; independent data is limited.

1. Before the exam, study the pre-released brief: the challenge, the people affected and real interventions related to it.
2. In the exam, read the intervention carefully: mechanism, actors, aims, evidence.
3. Use course concepts (power, values and ethics, systems) and other real-world examples you have studied.
4. Reach a clear, balanced judgement that names its limits and suggests an improvement.

• The three challenges: well-being, governance and human rights, sustainable development.
• GDPR and China's Personal Information Protection Law; e-waste and the digital divide.
• Reading an intervention: mechanism, actors, aims, evidence.
• Effectiveness, equity and acceptability; the worked gaming-rule plan.
• Paper 3: the pre-released brief; four steps.