In the digital age, time spent outdoor in green areas is significantly decreasing for children living in cities. With the advent of digital technology, a series of digital tools are gradually integrated into children’s lives and act as a double-edged sword: on the one hand, an increasing number of children tend to stay at home and play digital games instead of interacting with nature; on the other hand, new digital technology is increasingly being used to engage children with outdoor activities. A host of studies have investigated children’s behaviour in the natural environment. However, a systematic literature review of children’s interaction with the urban green infrastructure (UGI) and the respective role of digital environment, based on a theoretical framework that explicitly takes the multi-level determinants and individual-level mechanism of behaviour change into account does not exist yet. This work provides a conceptual framework that covers various determinants, such as motivation, capability, and opportunity related factors of children’s behaviour in terms of their UGI interaction at the city and neighbourhood levels, while taking into account the individual-level mechanism of behavioural change and the role of the digital environment. The framework is used to systematically review recent international empirical evidence on the determinants of children–UGI interaction. The results are useful for laying the theoretical foundation for future empirical research on children–UGI interaction, specifically in the presence of digital interventions. They also provide urban/digital intervention designers and policymakers with theory-based design and policy guidelines for the creation of child-friendly UGI.

Emerging digital technologies have the potential to motivate children’s interaction with nature. However, as the end-users of such tools, children have hardly been involved in their design process. This paper aims to investigate the desired characteristics of digital tools for an ideal interaction with nature from children’s perspective. We conducted an exploratory study, combining an outdoor activity and a co-design workshop, with 23 children from a secondary school in the Netherlands. We used a multimodal approach and the children-nature interaction model as a framework to analyze children’s designs. Findings show that children’s experience of using a nature-related digital tool in nature, and outline the design characteristics, requirements, and intervention functions of children’s on ideal digital tools that can increase their interaction with nature from their perspective.