You plant a virtual tree, we'll plant a real tree: Understanding users' adoption of the Ant Forest mobile gaming application from a behavioral reasoning theory perspective

Understanding Ant Forest continuance: effects of user experience, personal attributes and motivational factors

“…Although experts have focused on preadoption behaviors toward Ant Forest (Wang and Yao, 2020), the present work has put a closer look at postadoption of Ant Forest. Additionally, although scholars have used different theoretical lenses such as behavioral reasoning theory (Ashfaq et al, 2021b) and the Kano model (Wang and Yao, 2020) to study green behavior research, this study provides empirical evidence that user experience, personal attributes and motivational factors are important factors affecting continuance intention in the context of Ant Forest.…”

“…Previous studies on Ant Forest focus on the adoption of it or how to use it. Our extensive review of the literature on Ant Forest indicated that the prior studies have focused on five main areas: the gratifications of Ant Forest (environmental, achievement, entertainment and social gratifications) (Mi et al, 2021), the role of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in enhancing Ant Forest users' usage intention (Yang et al, 2018), perceived values of Ant Forest (functional, social, emotional and green values) (Peng and Mi, 2018), environmental (environmental concern) and game factors (perceived enjoyment, game interaction and perceived cost) (Zhang et al, 2020), gamification design elements (Wang and Yao, 2020) and Ant Forest adoption and its determinant factors (Ashfaq et al, 2021b). However, there is no study on the Ant Forest from the user experience (cognitive experience and affective experience), personal attributes (affection and altruism) and motivational factors (reward for activities and self-promotion) perspective.…”

“…Furthermore, this research offers several new correlates that augment our understanding of the important roles of personal attributes-related constructs (affection and altruism) and motivational-related constructs (reward for activities and selfpromotion) that drive users' continuance intentions in the Ant Forest setting. There is a substantial body of research in the technological environment on the factors that influence continuance intention (Ashfaq et al, 2021b;Shiau et al, 2020;Yan et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2020); however, not much is known about how affection, altruism, reward for activities and self-promotion drive continuance intention. In this respect, the current study theorizes these factors in the context of Ant Forest and confirms that they are all important antecedents that positively influence Ant Forest users' continuance intentions, thereby uniquely contributing to the existing literature.…”

“…To overcome environmental issues and achieve a sustainable environment, offering environmentally friendly products or services to protect the natural environment and human life at the same time is tremendously needed (Ali et al, 2020;Shahzad et al, 2020;Waheed and Zhang, 2020). One of the most important ways to promote a sustainable environment is to reduce carbon emissions (Erdo gan et al, 2020) by encouraging people to become involved in eco-friendly activities such as less use of plastic, passenger vehicles or paper money (Ashfaq et al, 2021b) because carbon emissions are considered a primary contributor to accelerate humanity's ecological footprint and increase environmental pollution (Usman et al, 2021). Passenger vehicles, paper money and plastic are one of the major and leading sources of pollution (Gupta, 2020;Hameed et al, 2020).…”

“…Remarkably, academic researchers have emphasized the sustainable growth of the Ant Forest project because it is highly significant for its long-term success, and it would be important only if Ant Forest users continue using it (Ashfaq et al, 2021b;Mi et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2020). Recent studies have witnessed a growing interest in the project of Ant Forest (Yang et al, 2018;Wang and Yao, 2020).…”