How the intensity of the immersive experience impels the extent of Social Streaming App dependency? An empirical assessment with mediation and moderation effects

With the rapid growth and popularity of Social Streaming Apps (SSAs) worldwide, it is valuable for scholars to understand the links between immersive experience provided by SSA, users' attitudes towards SSA, and the resultant SSA dependency. Although unexplored in the SSA context, previous research has indicated the significance of immersive experience and its influence on user's specific behavior through user attitude. The present study employs Structural Equation Modelling, by using 459 samples from a survey, to explore how the intensity of immersive experience can influence the degree of user dependency on SSA. Results indicate that immersive experience is positively associated with users' positive attitudes towards SSA, which would lead to SSA dependency. In addition, this study also found out that users' favorable attitude partially mediates the relationship between immersive experience and solitary play dependency. Whereas, attitude fully mediated the relationship between five out of six dimensions of SSA dependency. Furthermore, to better comprehend the intervening relationships between immersive experiences, user attitude, SSA dependency, the study also conducted a moderation analysis taking frequency of use as a moderating variable. The results illustrate that a high frequency of use is a strong psychological indicator for SSA dependency. This supports the importance of considering actual behavior along with their psychological states when examining users' immersive experience and their SSA dependency.