Social Electricity: The evolution of a Large-Scale, Green ICT Social Application through two Case Studies in Cyprus and Singapore

Abstract

Numerous green online social applications have emerged in recent years, aiming to motivate citizens towards pro environmental behavior. These applications exploit emerging new technologies, such as mobile computing, online social networking and the web, in order to affect their users in their everyday lives. In this paper, we discuss our experiences from the three year development and management of Social Electricity, a largescale green online social application which targets influencing people to reduce their electricity footprint. We provide findings from two case studies performed in Cyprus and Singapore for six months, involving 198 and 175 participants respectively. Through these studies, we observed the acceptance, effectiveness and potential of Social Electricity, increasing our knowledge about the motivations that inspire people to take pro-environmental actions and the barriers that hinder them from acting in a sustainable way. Finally, we present the new version of Social Electricity, supporting citizens from all around Europe, carefully designed and developed based on the feedback received from these case studies and the accumulated expertise during these three years.