Defining and measuring the effects of digital technologies on social sustainability: A systematic literature review

The impact of digital technologies on the environmental and economic sides of sustainability has received considerable attention. In contrast, the societal implications are quite under-researched. Through a systematic literature review, we describe the current status of the research on the impacts that digital technologies have on social sustainability. We pay particular attention to methods used for assessing and measuring these impacts. One positive observation made from our descriptive (bibliometric) analysis is that there is an increasing interest in social sustainability. Our content analysis identified four categories, namely Area of Impact, Approach to technology, Measured/Measurable Effect, and Measuring Methods, accumulating 30 labels, which we use to classify the papers at study. A quite common label is Jobs as the area of impacts, whereas the least used label in the approach to technology category is Cyber-security, signaling that few papers that investigate the impacts of digital technologies on social sustainability consider their security and privacy implications. Other gaps that we expose are the lack of empirical data as well as the lack of mathematical modeling when measuring the effects of digital technologies, with direct experiments appearing very seldom in the literature. In an attempt to provide a guide for future research, we identify five general research gaps, listing 20 specific research questions, and propose a structuring procedure for articles on social implications of digital technologies to be produce in a more systematic manner.

Automated summary

While the environmental and economic impacts of digital technologies on sustainability are well-researched, their societal implications have been largely overlooked. This study aims to fill this gap by providing a systematic review of the current research on the social sustainability impacts of digital technologies. The findings reveal an increasing interest in social sustainability, but also highlight gaps in empirical data, mathematical modeling, and consideration of security and privacy implications.