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The Divide
The same online service, reached easily by one household and not at all by another.
Click to zoom
The service is the same for both. The connection is not.
Discuss technology's social effects with terms that name mechanisms, avoiding the generic technology essay every Band 6 candidate writes.
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Everyone writes about computers and the internet. Almost nobody names how the technology actually produces its effect.
Nowadays, computers and the internet have changed our lives. Technology has many advantages but also some disadvantages.
That sentence names devices. It does not name a single mechanism — so it cannot explain anything, and it could have been written in 1999.
The same online service, reached easily by one household and not at all by another.
The service is the same for both. The connection is not.
Sort twelve terms by which level of the argument they sit at.
Sort each item into the correct category
Three decisions about whether your sentence explains anything.
One
You want to explain why clerical employment fell.
Candidates: computers changed the workplace / automation displaced routine clerical work
The expert chooses:
Because:
Two
You want to argue that someone made a deliberate design choice about what users see.
Candidates: social media is addictive / the algorithm prioritises provocative content
The expert chooses:
Because:
Three
You want to say that moving a public service online excluded some people.
Candidates: not everyone has the internet / this widened the digital divide
The expert chooses:
Because:
Six gaps across a Task 2 paragraph, each naming a mechanism rather than a device.
Should governments move public services online?
The efficiency case is strong, but the risks are specific rather than general.
The clearest benefit is cost: allows routine applications to be processed without staff, which is why tax and licensing systems moved first.
The clearest risk is exclusion. Households without reliable cannot reach a service that exists only online, and digitising a counter service therefore widens the rather than narrowing it.
This is partly a question of : fibre and mobile coverage have to reach a household before any online service can.
There is also a question of who decides. Where eligibility is assessed by , applicants have no one to appeal to and no explanation of the decision.
Governments must also plan for replacement, since systems built today will be within a decade and the cost of migration is rarely budgeted.
Explain how a technology produces a social effect — not that it does.
Task 2 prompt: Some people believe technology has made people less socially connected. Others disagree.
Test: if your sentences would still make sense with computers swapped for the internet swapped for smartphones, you are still at the device level.
Two sentences. At least one mechanism term.
If you can only name a device, say so — that is the finding.