The rapid advancement in computer and digital communication technology, particularly artificial intelligence, is fundamentally transforming STM journals’ editing, publishing, dissemination, even academic ethics. This transformation presents both opportunities and challenges. Digital technology and artificial intelligence introduce a fragmented, data-driven approach to rational thinking, potentially leading to information overload, diminished memory capacity, reduced reading effectiveness, and reading without individual perceptual experience. In the view of technological phenomenology, electronic reading has established a new relationship between humans and media. While philosophy can elucidate the technological impacts, the interrelationship between digital technology and technology philosophy, the theory of technology philosophy is adopted to examine this transformation. Technological innovation promotes the digital transformation of STM journals. Data, algorithms, and platforms emerge as crucial elements in journal digitization, causing the following practical aspects, content production increasingly driven by data analysis, academic dissemination influenced by algorithm adjustment, and interaction within the academic community increasingly supported by platforms. However, the mediation role of technology extends beyond mere value neutrality. The transformation of STM journals faces risks of technological alienation, such as data analysis replacing human thinking, algorithms constraining knowledge dissemination, and platforms leading superficial reading and knowledge divide. Addressing this transformation requires examining the essence of modern editing and publishing technology. The academic tasks dominating by the efficient technology leads to a relative deficiency of human embodiment. The willingness of technology influences the human knowledge acquisition and mass cultural consumption. Mathematicization brings about the reproducible content and dissolves academic innovation. This paper highlights four fundamental relationships between technology and human beings in modern editing and publishing: technology as a bodily extension facilitating perception, experience, and world connection; technology as a mediating lens for understanding; technology even as an invisible infrastructure shaping academic services of journals; and technology as an autonomous entity with internal logic and decision-making ability, forming complex interactions with authors, readers, editors, and reviewers. Methodologically, technology should be employed with humanistic spirits, its power balanced through proper strategies, and intellectual property rights protected to prevent academic misconduct. Seeking a sustainable pathway for the high-quality development of STM journals needs the collaborative efforts of humans and the governance of technological ethics. This study establishes a new human-technology relationship in the transformation, and constructes a systematic theoretical framework for practical implementation, advancing research on the editing and publishing of STM journals.