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

Purpose Technology has emerged as a leading tool to address concerns regarding climate change in the recent era. As a result, the green mobile application – Ant Forest – was developed, and it has considerable potential to reduce negative environmental impacts by encouraging its users to become involved in eco-friendly activities. Ant Forest is a novel unexplored green mobile gaming phenomenon. To address this gap, this study explores the influence of user experience (cognitive experience and affective experience), personal attributes (affection and altruism) and motivational factors in game play (reward for activities and self-promotion) on the continuation intention toward Ant Forest. Design/methodology/approach The authors assessed the data using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) for understanding users' continuation intention toward Ant Forest. Findings Through a survey of 337 Ant Forest users, the results reveal that cognitive and affective experiences substantially affect Ant Forest continuation intention. Personal attributes and motivational factors also stimulate users to continue using Ant Forest. Originality/value The authors build and confirm a conceptual framework to understand users' continuation intention toward a novel unexplored Ant Forest phenomenon.