The Ant Forest is an embodied component in China’s major online payment app Alipay and it is regarded as the most successful pro-environmental social gaming app globally. It is presented as a virtual forest and the growth of the trees are fed by a function called the green energy points. Users earn the points through environment-friendly behaviours that can be recognised by the app. Once a virtual tree is grew on the user’s app, Alipay will match a real tree in dedicated conservation areas, thus helped to protect the environment. Previous studies surrounding the Ant Forest often examine the behaviours of users, especially the motivations, short term and long term behavioural changes, and the impacts and results. While this research takes a different angle by examining the understandings and perceptions of the blended boundary between offline and online environmental protection activities in the Ant Forest. To answer these questions, this research conducted interview with 7 users of Ant Forests. The empirical data shows that the boundary between online and offline is blurring for the environmental participation through the Ant Forest. Not only users tended to regard using the Ant Forest as blended online and offline behaviours, but also they described their actions and results of the actions, as interchanging and blending between online and offline.

Authors:
Qingning Wang, Xi’an Jiaotong - Liverpool University, China

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Qingning Wang is a University Assistant Professor/Lecturer at Xi’an Jiaotong - Liverpool University in China

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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