Flow

Csikszentmihalyi put forward the idea of flow when playing games. Flow is the state of optimal psychological experience. In flow the challenges the gamer faces is perfectly matched to their ability to solve them, not too difficult (causing aniexty) or too easy (resulting in boredom). A person in flow accomplishes things that they would have believed that they otherwise wouldn’t, and can occur in anything from chess to football (Facer, K). But what is flow? Flow is a zen-like state in which the person is completely absorbed in the activity they are part-taking in. This person loses track of time and feels in totally control of their actions and fate. I recently experience flow while playing ‘Speedy bubbles’, a ‘Bust-a-move 2’ like game. I completely lost track of time for the hour I played.
The first prerequisite to flow is it has to be a challenging activity, so not passive, like sitting watching TV or sleeping. The next two points are that the activity has to have a clear goal(s) and feedback, so in ‘Speedy bubbles’ it was to combined same coloured bubbles to burst them (the feedback) before they reached the bottom of the screen. The last point is that there has to be a chance of failure. In ‘Speedy bubbles’ more bubbles where added throughout the game till they reached the bottom.
The first two effects of flow is becoming so absorbed that the activity is spontaneous and it must have your complete concentration, while playing ‘Speedy bubbles’ I was completely focused on the screen and it often felt as if I wasn’t thinking about the next move, I just did it. Next is the loss of self-consciousness, as if you become part of the activity, which I believe links strongly with acting spontaneously. Finally is the transformation of time. It can either stretches out or speeds up. So while I played ‘Speedy bubbles’, an hour passed by when I only thought 10 minutes had gone by.