Interdependence effects would arise when individuals consume two or more products simultaneously. However, comprehensive understanding and quantitative analysis of such interdependence effects in the use of mobile social apps are still limited. The few existing studies mainly considered whether the apps are installed together by unique devices, while the actual usage behaviors are totally ignored. The current study developed an adapted utility function model to quantify the interdependence effects and found that social apps satisfying users’ different psychological needs would be complementary at most times, while those apps gratifying similar psychological needs would also complement rather than substitute each other.

当个人同时消费两种或多种产品时，就会产生相互依存的影响。但是，在移动社交应用程序的使用中对此类相互依存效应的全面理解和定量分析仍然有限。现有的少数研究主要考虑应用程序是否通过独特的设备安装在一起，而实际的使用行为却被完全忽略了。当前的研究开发了一种适应性的效用函数模型，以量化相互依存的影响，发现满足用户不同心理需求的社交应用在大多数情况下将是互补的，而满足类似心理需求的那些社交应用也将相互补充而不是相互替代。