Perspectives and impacts of modern technology on the environment and society

The exacerbation of the climate crisis has intensified debates on the role of technology in addressing the environmental and social challenges it entails. While international agendas, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), prioritise technological adoption and innovation as a solution, critical scholarship suggests scepticism about an increase in technology as a beneficial step. Reflecting on these divergent perspectives, this study assumes an agnostic stance towards technology to assess technical literature on technology and its impacts through an integrated approach. This approach includes a systematic literature review (SLR) and a follow-up systems analysis on the SLR findings. With a predominant presence of literature on environmental impacts and China as a location of study, technology initially appears to have mainly positive implications. However, through further assessment and systems analysis, this support weakens, revealing hidden links and consequences that undermine technology's initial benefits and expose possible biases and alignment with political agendas. Similarly, this study reveals that when analysed through a broader lens, technology appears to be in an endless feedback loop with itself and its impacts, having overall detrimental correlations that contradict individual publications on technological desirability. As a result, this study shows that a systems thinking approach to specific technologies and empirical studies can strengthen critical scholarship arguments. To conclude, this study argues for systems thinking approaches and interdisciplinary dialogue to inform policies and research related to technology and its impacts.