A Study On The Role Of Environmental Protection Social Games In Promoting Pro-Environmental Behavior

In recent decades,the global ecological environment has been deteriorating and environmental issues have become increasingly prominent,including global warming,land desertification and other challenges.In the face of the unpromising environmental situation,people have gradually begun to pay attention to the issue of environmental protection.As a social issue,environmental protection should be a social issue,and only through the involvement of the general public can the deterioration of the ecological environment be fundamentally reversed.At present,government agencies and environmental protection organizations are mainly using a series of publicity and guidance measures to stimulate public awareness of environmental protection,such as enacting environmental protection laws and regulations,establishing environmental protection management bodies and building green towns.Against the backdrop of the rapid development of the Internet,information technology have profoundly changed the way people live their daily lives and have subtly influenced their thinking and behaviour.In addition to bringing convenience and entertainment,the development of information technology has also provided a new way for the public to actively participate in environmental protection,and ‘Ant Forest’ is a successful attempt.Ant Forest is an environmental protection app designed to encourage users to accumulate energy through pro-environmental behavior,so as to achieve the goal of planting real trees in reality.This new way of environmental protection not only inspires more people to participate in pro-environmental behavior,but also increases the public’s awareness of environmental protection and cultivates environmental habits.As of June 2020,Ant Forest has over 550 million users and has planted over 200 million trees in desert areas.It is clear that Ant Forest,as a new type of environmental app,has a profound and extensive impact on users’ pro-environmental behavior,however,there is relatively little research in academia on this new type of app and its impact on users’ pro-environmental behavior,and this paper aims to enrich this research area.This study focuses on the functional design of the system and the user perceived value of Ant Forest: firstly,it explores how the functional design of the Ant Forest system affects users’ perceived value;secondly,it analyses the impact of users’ perceived value on their pro-environmental behavioral intentions.This paper draws on the principles of persuasive design in persuasive system theory and value theory to construct a theoretical research model for analyzing the relationship between the design of the Ant Forest persuasive system,users’ perceived values and pro-environmental behavioral intention.The study used a questionnaire and empirically tested the 472 valid responses collected.The results show that users’ continued gameplay intention has a positive impact on their pro-environmental behavioral intention.Users’ perceived utilitarian value,hedonic value and social value had a positive impact on their continued gameplay intention.Users’ perceived altruistic value and biospheric value had a positive influence on their pro-environmental behavioral intention.Meanwhile,the main task support design of the Ant Forest system has a positive impact on users’ perceived hedonic and social value,the human-computer dialogue support design has a positive impact on perceived utilitarian value and social value,and the social support design and system reliability have a positive impact on users’ perceived utilitarian value,hedonic value and social value.This study systematically analyses the influence mechanisms of Ant Forest on users’ pro-environmental behavior.The findings of this study point out future development directions and highlights of the optimization for the management and developers of similar environmental apps such as Ant Forest.At the same time,this study also provides a new approach for governments and environmental organizations to promote environmental protection concepts and projects.