Everyone at some stage in their life has experienced what is referred to as being “in the zone”.It is a feeling of complete concentration and intense focus towards a certain activity or task.The activity can be anything ranging from reading a book to playing a competitive sport.A person experiencing what professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi labelled as “flow” becomes fully engaged in an activity, losing all sense of time and emotional problems in the process.Csikszentmihalyi defined flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
To achieve a flow experience a delicate balance needs to be maintained between a perceived challenge and the skills required to meet this challenge.Take video games for example.I can recall several experiences where I stopped playing a game because I perceived it as too easy .My skill set had evolved to the point where the game no longer presented a challenge.Therefore I quickly became bored and stopped playing.A similar problem occurs when a games difficulty is too high for no apparent reason.In these cases I become quickly frustrated which results in the same outcome previously mentioned.I would need to be confronted with progressively more difficult challenges to test my every developing skill set. John Carl presented a suitable example of a novice tennis player could experience flow from simply hitting a ball against a wall(Carl: A Theory of Optimal Experience).As her skills increased she would need to be presented with more difficult challenges to remain in flow ..If the challenge is too difficult(she faces off against a professional player) she will become anxious and frustrated.A challenge that was to easy would lead to boredom. However when a balance is struck between ability and challenge it can inspire people to practice,work or play longer and harder.
Here is a diagram depicting the relationship between challenge and abilities in regards to the flow theory(Chen, 2014).
Now onto this subject as it relates to the heading of this post.Can flow correspond or lead to addiction?.Surely anything that causes someone to lose track of both time and self could be potentially dangerous.Especially in a medium that can be so engaging and immersive.Studies have shown that 10 to 15 per cent of gamers exhibit signs that meet the criteria for addiction(Video-game-addiction.org, 2014).For example tHe worlds created in MMOs can be so enthralling that individuals substitute real-life interaction with virtual fantasy.However through my research on this topic I have concluded that this may not be the case.A study amongst Taiwanese college students in relation to the flow theory in Internet Gaming addiction concluded that individuals with addiction tendencies had a lower flow state then those of us how are not.Which makes sense to me because an addicted person plays games because they feel as if they MUST,while others play for enjoyment.As a result normal games will experience a much higher sense of satisfaction then their addicted counterparts.An addicted gamer’s goal is a realize from dissatisfaction rather then achieving satisfaction itself .
In concluding this blog I was surprised to find out that flow and addiction do not as strongly correlate as I initially assumed.THere is a huge difference between someone who loses track of time due to a sense of flow and an individual who neglects time to feed an addicted impulse.
Video-game-addiction.org, (2014). Video Game Addiction – Internet Gaming Addiction. [online] Available at: http://www.video-game-addiction.org/ [Accessed 20 Dec. 2014].
Chen, J. (2014). Welcome to Flow in Games. [online] Jenovachen.com. Available at: http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/flowtheory.htm [Accessed 20 Dec. 2014].
Chiang, Y. T., Lin, S. S. J., Cheng, C. Y., & Liu, E. Z. F. (2011). Exploring Online Game Players’ Flow
Experiences and Positive Affect. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 10(1), 106-114.
Ethan MacNamara 