As AI blurs the boundaries between human and machine, researchers examine how emerging technologies challenge our understanding of identity, purpose, and human connection.
Knowledge and meaning in a technology-driven world: a rapid review. Image Credit: Gustavo Frazao / Shutterstock
A new rapid review in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications explores how digital technologies, digital literacy, and knowledge management shape existential inquiry and meaningful engagement with technology.
The Growing Impact of Emerging Digital Technologies
The digital age has changed communication, access to information, and how people construct meaning, identity, and values. Advances in computers and artificial intelligence (AI) have made debates about non-biological awareness increasingly urgent, as digital interactions now shape human experience and society on multiple levels.
Emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of Everything (IoE), virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), AI, and personal informatics, alongside internet regulation, are reshaping how people interact, learn, and perceive reality. While IoT and IoE enable smart environments and real-time data analysis with applications in urban planning, healthcare, and education, these developments also raise persistent challenges in standardization, security, and privacy.
AI’s ability to generate convincing multimedia content intensifies concerns about misinformation, public trust, and the blurring of fact and opinion. Previous research has proposed blockchain technology as a means of verifying digital content, while studies of AI narratives describe concerns about the changing relationship between humans and machines. Meanwhile, digital technologies have expanded possibilities for personal informatics and health management, but traditional self-monitoring tools often overlook social and contextual factors, suggesting a need to account for users' circumstances.
Knowledge management (KM) supports organizational innovation by integrating human, technological, and process elements, with international standards providing guidance. Likewise, digital literacy, encompassing the skills to access, evaluate, and use digital information effectively, is important for learning, work, and civic participation. Yet, research has not sufficiently synthesized how these rapidly evolving technologies collectively shape autonomy, identity, and meaning in digital contexts, nor how individuals and institutions can respond.
Methodology and Literature Synthesis
The researchers used the Rapid Review (RR) method (Cartaxo et al., 2018) to explore how digital technologies may change traditional ideas about meaning, creating new opportunities and challenges for daily life. Rapid reviews summarize selected research more quickly than full systematic reviews, using narrower procedures that can limit coverage.
The review addresses two main research questions. RQ1 explores how digital technologies affect existential inquiry and human experience. RQ2 focuses on the role of digital literacy in organizing and applying knowledge in digital environments.
Both questions address the core issue of potential disorientation and loss of meaning amid rapid technological change.
The authors searched Scopus on 26 April 2024 for English-language peer-reviewed journal articles, conference papers, and book chapters published since 2010. Papers were included if they addressed at least one research question. Of 84 records identified, 18 were selected for the review.
How Technology Shapes the Search for Meaning
This review synthesizes findings from 18 publications dating from 2010 to 2024, including empirical and conceptual work. Through comparative thematic analysis, it explores how digital literacy and KM may support meaningful interaction and self-reflection in technology-driven environments. The authors identified five themes: AI and existential concerns, technology and human experience, embodied cognition, digital literacy and KM, and meaningful interaction. The outcomes for RQ1 and RQ2 are summarized below.
Digital Technologies and Meaning-Making
RQ1: The reviewed literature suggests that digital technologies influence how people seek meaning and confront existential questions in contemporary society. Cultural narratives about AI reflect both anxiety and optimism about consciousness, mortality, and life’s purpose. AI is portrayed as a potential threat that requires regulation and as a subject of philosophical debate about human existence.
Beyond AI, digital innovations, including immersive media, may influence existential beliefs, contemplative practices, and ethical considerations. These technologies raise questions around privacy and autonomy, and offer opportunities for deeper existential inquiry.
Immersive technologies like VR and AR may also influence perceptions of embodiment, self-perception, and social interaction. Design that accounts for users' needs may support engagement, learning, and self-reflection, while raising philosophical questions about what it means to be human.
Digital Literacy and KM
RQ2: Digital literacy is central to effective knowledge management across educational, business, and personal contexts. It can help individuals navigate, process, and share information, supporting self-regulated learning, knowledge sharing, and organizational performance. When combined with self-directed learning strategies and appropriate technological tools, digital literacy may strengthen knowledge sharing, learning outcomes, and organizational innovation.
The review also identifies opportunities for collaboration, community-building, and personal growth through digital environments, while suggesting that digital literacy can help people participate in these experiences. Studies of immersive classrooms, structured digital discussions, and online grief-support communities suggest possible benefits for learning, reflection, and emotional connection. The authors distinguish educational understanding from evidence about existential purpose.
Limitations and Implications
The review has several limitations. The search was limited to titles for feasibility, which may have excluded some relevant studies. The researchers used one database, relied on a single researcher to screen records, and could not retrieve 14 full texts. The evidence varied in design, population, and methodological strength, but it made several conceptual contributions. These constraints limit the generalizability of the findings and do not permit causal conclusions.
The authors suggest that digital literacy and KM can help individuals and organizations use technology more meaningfully. The authors recommend digital and AI literacy education, reflective technology design, stronger knowledge management practices, privacy protections, and responsible AI governance. The authors also call for longitudinal and cross-cultural research to examine how these approaches affect meaning-making over time.
Scientists reviewed studies covering 1.17 million children and found a major research gap