Intermittent Discontinuance Behavior Of Mobile Social Network Users From A Dual Perspective

In recent years,with the rapid development of mobile internet and the wide application of mobile devices,mobile social network is growing.However,with the continuous expansion of the overall scale of mobile social network,users begin to become dissatisfied and user activity begins to decline.Such a phenomenon seriously hinders the further development of mobile social network platform.Therefore,it is becoming increasingly important to find ways to improve the satisfaction of mobile social network users and reduce the user churn.At present,most of previous studies related to the discontinuance of mobile social network users focused on the influence factors of promoting users to stop using mobile social network.However,under the combined effects of promoting and inhibiting influence factors,intermittent discontinuance behavior of mobile social network users occurs,which are rarely studied now.Thus,this study aims to explore the influence factors of intermittent discontinuance behavior of mobile social network users,from a dual perspective of promotion and inhibition.What's more,this study also explores the mechanism of influence factors and ranks the importance of different factors.Firstly,this study introduces the flow theory into the field of discontinuance of mobile social network users.This study combines the overload theory,fatigue theory,flow theory and Stimulus-Organism-Response model(SO-R),and constructs the theoretical model.Secondly,this study designs the questionnaire based on the mature scale,and the study object is Weibo users.In this study,388 valid questionnaires are collected for descriptive statistical analysis,reliability and validity test,and hypothesis test is conducted based on Structural Equation Modeling(SEM).Then,combining SEM model and Artificial Neural Network(ANN),this study proposes a multimodule neural network named SEM-MANN model,and ranks the importance of influence factors of intermittent discontinuance behavior.Finally,this study analyzes and discusses in detail according to the results of hypothesis test and the importance ranking.Furthermore,relevant suggestions for mobile social network platform are put forward.The main contributions of this study are concluded as follows:(1)Innovation in research perspective.This study presents an influence factor model of mobile social network users' intermittent discontinuance behavior,from a dual perspective of promotion and inhibition.Most of the existing researches on mobile social network users' discontinuance didn't refine to the intermittent discontinuance behavior.At the same time,most of the related researches focused on the influence factors that promote users to stop using mobile social network,neglecting factors that inhibit users from stopping using,and failed to consider the behavior that users suspend from the mobile social network for a period but use again then.This study focuses on the intermittent discontinuance behavior of mobile social network users,and considers the factors of promotion and inhibition simultaneously,making the model more comprehensive.(2)Innovation in research content.This study combines overload theory,fatigue theory and flow theory,and constructs the research model based on S-O-R model.Most of previous studies have considered the relationship between overload and fatigue,as well as fatigue and discontinuance.However,few studies considered the factors inhibiting the mobile social network users from stopping using the platform.This study not only considers the impact of flow experience on intermittent discontinuance behavior,but also studies the impact of flow experience on fatigue of mobile social network users.(3)Innovation in research method.Most of existing related researches only consider the linear relationship among variables.Nevertheless,the intermittent discontinuance behavior includes dynamic stages of using the platform,suspending,and using again.The psychological and behavioral changes in different stages are complex and there is a nonlinear relationship.Based on the research conclusion and the topological structure of the SEM model,a multimodule neural network named SEM-MANN model is constructed.The SEM-MANN model combines the good non-linear fitting ability of ANN and the explanatory power of the SEM model.This study explores the intermittent discontinuance behavior of mobile social network users.The research results are helpful for the mobile social network platform to further understand the user needs,optimize the platform services and improve the service quality.Furthermore,it is helpful to reduce the possibility of user churn and promote the further development of mobile social network platform.