A survey of empirical studies on persuasive technologies to promote sustainable living

In total, 38 articles were reviewed, of which 61% focused on electricity consumption issues, with the remaining investigating a variety of other sustainability issues. Further, the results from the analysis of these articles found that the duration of the studies was under one month for approximately half of them. The sample size of the 14 field tests involving families ranged from 1 households to 30, with 12 studies involving a sample size of less than or equal to 10. The sample size of the field studies involving individuals ranged from 4 to 651. Both field and lab studies collected quantitative (consumption and interaction data) and qualitative data (surveys, focus groups, interviews and observations). The results from these 38 articles found that behavioral changes were observed in 42% of the studies. In addition, of the 19 studies reporting an increase in awareness, 8 also reported a behavior change, suggesting a relationship between awareness and behavioral change. This review concludes that more research is needed, specifically, there is a need to design interventions using a socio-technical approach rather than focusing on individuals as the unit of analysis for design and evaluation. In addition, there is a need to expand the research beyond user considerations to include societal and political ones.