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

Abstract

Growing green plants can enrich the natural environment and benefit society in many ways. With this in mind, a new Ant Forest mobile gaming application was launched in China by Alipay, which is embedded in the Alipay application. Since Ant Forest is entirely a new green behavior phenomenon—of a type rarely studied in the literature—we explore users’ attitudes toward Ant Forest and their continued use intentions toward it with the moderating role of environmental knowledge based on behavioral reasoning theory (BRT). A quantitative approach using structural equation modeling and SmartPLS 3 was employed. Analysis of data collected from 293 actual Ant Forest users divulges that the user values significantly influence “reasons for” (RF), “reasons against” (RA), and attitude toward Ant Forest. Similarly, both RF (environmental benefits, social influence, hedonic motivation, and convenience) and RA (privacy concerns, usage barrier, and green skepticism) affect attitude and intention to continue using Ant Forest. The results also show that environmental knowledge moderates the effects of attitude on continuance intention. Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature on Ant Forest and BRT in the context of green behavior. Practically, our findings bring essential insights for the enterprises and governments who want to promote green and low-carbon societies.