The impact of the digital environment on eco-friendly behavioural change towards nature: Exploring the concept of forest bathing without forest

Abstract

The article quantitatively investigates transformative changes in human behavioral patterns about nature due to using digital forests in relaxation practices. In the era of COVID-19, when physical outings and social interactions have been limited, there has been a growing trend for people to engage in digital interactions with nature. This article aims to quantify the impact of people’s behavior and interaction in the digital space on the change of personal behavioral patterns in the physical natural environment, as well as to analyze the potential effects of digital “bathing in the forest”. Since in work it is advisable to take into account the influence of hidden factors, structural equation modeling was used for the needs of this study. The primary data were the answers of 300 respondents, which were obtained based on the results of a survey of people in the capital region of Japan. A five-point Likert scale was used to evaluate and analyze respondents’ opinions. The internal reliability of the questionnaire scales was tested using Cronbach’s alpha. The work offers an integral indicator for assessing the personal characteristics of individuals, based on which two groups of respondents were formed – extroverts (the index is higher than the median) and introverts (the index is lower than the median). The study analyzed the pathways that lead to changes in human behavior caused by the development of digital natural relaxation methods. The work established a statistically significant relationship between the effect of digital “bathing in the forest” and a change in human behavior (correlation coefficient 0.872). According to the results of structural modeling, it was found that digital “forest bathing” has a significant mediating effect on the promotion of pro-environmental behavior (correlation coefficient is 0.634) and that users who regularly experience nature in cyberspace are more likely to change their behavior concerning nature. It is substantiated that people closer to introversion are more actively involved in the digital space and interact with others, and significantly more often change their behavior towards the environment. This study is a rare contribution demonstrating the potential of enjoying digital “forest bathing” to induce environmentally oriented behavior, even in the physical absence of forests.