Impact of Dual Purpose Mobile App for Environmental Education through Entertainment using Social Media Platforms
Keywords:
Environmental Education, Mobile Learning, Gamification, Social media, Entertainment, Human cartoons.Abstract
In this age of digital innovation, the integration of sustainability and Mobile App development comes as a timely and relevant tool for technological advancement and environmental education. Mobile communication provides a fast and convenient medium of providing information. This study investigates awareness of Environmental Mobile Apps and examines how a dual-purpose Environmental Mobile App leverages social media platforms. Using a descriptive-exploratory approach, an in-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 13 young adults (between 18 and 49 years) who are proficient with mobile apps and social media. A semi-structured guide supported the data collection. The transcriptions were analyzed using content analysis. The results show that 23.08% participants learned about Environmental Mobile Apps through their studies, while 76.92% did not. All participants recognized that social media raises app visibility. 69.23% of participants highlighted the educational advantages of Environmental Apps under the theme ‘‘Education and Research Purposes.’’ 30.77% agreed that combining entertainment with educational features would improve learning under the theme ‘‘Education and Entertainment.’’ The findings strongly suggest that future Environmental Mobile Apps should integrate both entertainment and educational elements to engage and raise awareness via social media especially for young adults in the age bracket between 18 and 49 years.
References
Ackland, R., Tanaka, K. (2016). Development Impact of Social Media. World Development Report. Doi: https//documents.worldbank.org/en/publication/documents-report.
Andersson, E., Öhman, J. (2017). Young People’s Conversations about Environmental and Sustainability Issues in Social Media. Environmental Education Research 23(4): 465−485.
Andrade-Arenas, L., Giraldo-Retuerto, M., Molina-Velarde, P. and Yactayo-Arias, C. (2024). Mobile application: Awareness of the population on the environmental impact. Bulletin of Electrical Engineering and Informatics. 13(2):1256-1267
Boncu, S., Candel, O-S., Popa, N.L. (2022). Gameful Green: A Systematic Review on the use of Serious Computer Games and Gamified Mobile Apps to foster Pro-Environmental Information, Attitudes and Behaviour. Sustainability 14:10400. Doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/su141610400
Church, K., de Oliveira, R. (2013). What’s up with WhatsApp?: comparing mobile instant messaging behaviours with traditional SMS. In:Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices and services. ACM, pp 352-361
Ellison, N.B., Boyd, D.M. (2013). Sociality Through Social Network Sites. In The Oxford Handbook of Internet Studies, edited by W.H. Dutton, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Faruk, M., Rahman, M. Hasan, S. (2021). How digital marketing evolved over time: A bibliometric analysis on scopus database. Heliyon:e08603. يDoi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e08603
Haq, I.U., Nisar, M., Khan, J. (2025). How Access to Information creates Environmental Awareness Among Students? A Cross-Sectional Analysis. Review Journal of Social Psychology and Social Works. 3(2)
Ho, K.K.W., Takagi, T., Ye, S., Au, C.H., Chiu, D.K.W. (2019). The Use of Social Media for Engaging People with Environmentally Friendly Lifestyle: A Conceptual Model. In Proceedings of the 2018 SIGGreen Pre-ICIS Workshop.
Khanom, M.T. (2023). Using social media marketing in the digital era: A necessity or a choice. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science 12(3):88-98
Leeming, F.C., Dwyer, W.O., Porter, B.E., Cobern, M.K. (1993). Outcome Research in Environmental Education: A Critical Review. J. Environ. Educ. 24: 8–21.
Lin, V. J. and Ardoin, N.M. (2023). Connecting technologies and nature: Impact and opportunities for digital media use in the context of at-home family environmental learning. The Journal of Environmental Education. 54: 72-83. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2022.2152411
Montag, C., Blaszkiewicz, K., Sariyska, R., Lachmann, B., Andone, I., Trendafilov, B., Eibes, M. and Markowetz, A. (2015). Smartphone usage in the 21st century: who is active on WhatsApp? BMC Research Notes 8:331. Doi: 10.1186/s13104-015-1280-3
Morganti, L., Pallavicini, F., Cadel, E., Candelieri, A., Archetti, F. and Mantovani, F. (2017). Gaming for Earth: Serious Games and Gamification to Engage Consumers in pro-Environmental Behaviours for Energy Efficiency. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 29: 95–102.
Pillmann, W. (2000). Environmental Communication. Systems Analysis of Environmentally Related Information Flows as a Basis for the Popularization of the Framework for Sustainable Development. In 14th Symposium Computer Science for Environmental Protection. Bonn, Germany: Metropolis.
Richter, F. (2020). Statista WhatsApp Reaches 2 Billion Active Users. Doi:https://www.statista.com/chart/4245/whatsapp-user-growth.
Ro, M.; Brauer, M.; Kuntz, K.; Shukla, R., Bensch, I. (2017). Making Cool Choices for Sustainability: Testing the Effectiveness of a Game-Based Approach to Promoting pro-Environmental Behaviors. J. Environ. Psychol. 53: 20–30.
Sultan, A.J. (2014). Addiction to mobile text messaging applications is nothing to ‘‘lol’’ about. Soc. Sci. J. 51:57-69
World Bank (2018). Celebrate 2018 with 12 Cartoons on Water and Sanitation. Doi: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2017/12/14/water-cartoon-calendar-2018
Nghiem, T.P.L. and Carrasco, L.R. (2016). Mobile Applications to Link Sustainable Consumption with Impacts on the Environment and Biodiversity. BioScience. 66(5):384-392. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biw016
Kurni, M., Krishnamaneni, R. and Srinivasa, K.G. (2026). Gamification for Social Good and Community Engagement. In: Gamified Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-04718-2_14
Beavis, C. (2015). Young People, Online لGaming Culture, and Education. هIn:Wyn, J., Cahill, H. (eds) Handbook of Children and youth Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-15-4_32
Sousa, M. (2021). Serious board games: Modding existing games for collaborative ideation processes. International تJournal of Serious Games. 8(2):129-146. https://doi.org/10.17083/ijsg.v8i2.405
González-Yubero, S., Mauri, M., Cardoso, M.J. and Palomera, R. (2023). Learning through challenges and enigmas: Educational escape room as a predictive experience of motivation in university students. Sustainability. 15 (17):13001. https://doi.org/10.3390/su151713001
Roberts, J.A. and David, M.E. (2025). Technology Affordances, Social Media ثEngagement, and Social Media Addiction: An Investigation of Tik Tok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 28(5). Doi: https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2024.0338
Nichols, B.H., Caplow, S., Franzen, R.L., McClain, L.R., Pennisi, L. and Tarlton, J.L. (2022). Pandemic shift: Meeting the challenges of moving post-secondary environmental education online. Environmental Education Research. 28(1):1-17. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2021.2007220.
Nyakana, C., Smith, C. and Mphahlele, L. (2023). Emojis as a novel way to communicate using WhatsApp. A Journal for Language Learning. Per Linguam 39(2): 115-133. Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.5785/39-2-1053
Morganti, L., Pallavicini, F., Cadel, E., Candelieri, A., Archetti, F., Mantovani, F. (2017). Gaming for Earth: Serious Games and Gamification to Engage Consumers in pro-Environmental Behaviours for Energy Efficiency. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 29:95-102
Ro, M., Brauer, M., Kuntz, K., Shukla, R., Bensch, I. (2017). Making Cool Choices for Sustainability: Testing the Effectiveness of a Game-Based Approach to Promoting pro-Environmental Behaviours. J. Environ. Psychol. 53:20-30
Torres-Toukoumidis, A., León, D.V., De-Santis, A., López-López, P.C. (2022). Gamification in Ecology-Oriented Mobile Applications-Typologies and Purposes. Societies. 12:42
