I don't think I have to explain how much of the technology that has been developed over the last century or more is harmful. I'm going to assume that you already know this.
I think the reason why is because our standards are too low when it comes to adopting new technologies. In many cases, we have no standards at all.
I should probably qualify "we". By "we" I mean the vast majority of Americans, and people of other countries who have followed American behavior. I'm not sure whether or not it started here (it was certainly accelerated by the industrial revolution which can probably be attributed more to England) but I can only really speak from experience when it comes to Americans.
When evaluating a new technology for regular use (if we evaluate it at all) the primary hurdle to adoption is whether or not the technology is worse than what we already have, and what I propose is that we instead test to make sure it is better. That might not sound like a big difference but in most cases proving that something is better is a lot more work than proving that it is worse. This is compounded by the fact that most of the "worse" tests are extremely weak and only test some narrow aspect of the technology (is it faster/cheaper/etc. than the current technology). Requiring a technology to be better means first quantifying what you have. This alone would discredit the value of many technologies as their "value proposition" is often slippery and hard to use for comparisons.
If you are able to quantify the value of the technology you are already using, the next challenge is to find a way to measure the proposed improvements the new technology provides. This is even harder, especially if you take the word "proof" seriously. It requires a wide range of measurements over a long period of time (in business environments a financial year should be the absolute minimum). When the cost of the analysis alone is understood, many new technologies potential value may not even clear this hurdle.
Many decry that such barriers will stifle innovation. I think that depends on how you define innovation (barriers certainly do not constrain creativity) but I also think we need to reconsider the value of innovation. New ideas are exciting and fun but I think we can all agree that when it comes to using them we should have some understanding of how they will affect all of us and not just the person who came-up with the idea. There is no shortage of examples of ideas or innovations which only benefit a small number of people while doing a great deal of harm to many, many others.
I don't think most reasonable people would consider that progress.
I love new ideas, and I love technology. I've spent most of my life inventing new things and creating "something out of nothing". I believe there should be space to explore all ideas even if they are considered worthless or harmful, but I don't think this space should be one in which other people can be harmed by these exercises, and I think that ideas or technologies that are found to be harmful should be set-aside as soon as this is understood. This may not be possible under the perverse incentives of Capitalism, but I don't think that's a justification for perpetuating harmful technologies or the inadequate process in which we determine what technologies we will adopt and continue to use. If we cannot make the people in power understand this, then we have a personal responsibility as technologists to ensure it ourselves by containing this knowledge before it can be appropriated and by sabotaging it when it has made it out into the wild.