Flow Promotes Learning

Experiences that are well aligned with flow are those that we have no trouble committing to for a long time. We concentrate on them for hours at a time because we’re getting rewarded for that concentration. Even more important, perhaps, is that when we’re playing games, we want to enter that deep state of concentration. Well-crafted experiences offer a deep and effortless involvement that separates the experience of play from the experience of ordinary life. These experiences are enjoyable because of the way they reward sustained play and are enjoyable because they give most of the decision making to the player. They put the control firmly in the hands of the player.

If you’ve had a really intense flow experience, then you know that it’s almost like an alteration of normal consciousness. This altered state stems from play that is well aligned with flow. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) notes that in a deep flow state, concern for the self disappears and the sense of the passage of time is distorted. I have no doubt that almost anyone who has dabbled with video games can understand how these flow states are powerfully and sometimes uniquely stimulated by gameplay. A flowaligned activity is purposefully created and designed to achieve its goal. It has “rules, skills, goals, feedback, and control” (p. 72). Essentially, those activities that are most “flow aligned” are those that are the most gamified.