I was once a Neopets addict. The cute virtual pets and arcade-style games were what drew me in at first, but they were not what kept me playing. Although I did play Meerca Chase everyday, I spent most of my time on the message boards, looking for role-playing games to play with other people online. One particular role-playing game comes to mind. The basic guideline for the story was high school drama, and I, being a 12-year-old junior high school girl, was instantly intrigued. I joined the conversation, convinced all the people joining that I was "literate", and somehow managed to weasel my way into the role of female protagonist. I played the shy, not-so-popular girl who had a huge crush on the high school football quarterback. It was quite amazing how playing that part in the RPG captured my attention so completely. I did not bother to eat until we had reached the end of the story. By then, the football quarterback had gone psychotic and run around the school with a gun because he was so in love with my character but didn't know how to express his feelings in a less dramatic way.
I think that there are several reasons why participating in this particular RPG put me within "the flow":
- it involved some literary skill, but was not too difficult that I would have to edit and re-edit my posts.
- it involved social interaction, particularly the goal of impressing the other participants.
- it allowed me to have some control over the storyline
- it provided me with instant feedback from other players.
- it gave me an intrinsic satisfaction in having enjoyed and been part of creating a good story, which is related to Csikszentmihalyi's conception of an "autotelic" personality.
How do you see the Csikszentmihalyi articles playing into Lazzaro's articles? How do you see them playing into your own experiences with Neopets? (also a fellow addict - except I loved those darn mini-games).
ReplyDeleteYou didn't eat until after the story line was finished? How long did this story take/was this done in one sitting? (I've seen a role playing thread in a forum that spanned for weeks, maybe? Not that I, erm, participated or anything. *shifty*)
ReplyDeleteWhich brings me to my Thought Provoking Question/Comment: From reading Csikszentmihalyi's and Lazzaro's articles, I got the impression that every time someone entered the "flow", they did it in one setting. Like playing a tennis game, climbing a mountain, and other things that you can't really put down and later pick back up again. Have you ever experienced a time when a story kind of stalled for a while? Or to put it more vaguely, can someone really be in a flow if s/he enters and exits it repeatedly?
Larazzo details the different aspects of gaming that optimize Csikszentmihalyi's flow for players. The main connection between Larazzo's research and Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow is enjoyment. Larazzo's research focused on what players enjoyed most about gaming, and Csikszentmihalyi's article is particular about the difference between pleasure and enjoyment. Enjoyment involves a "forward movement" or aspect of learning and improvement that goes beyond mediocrity. Larazzo shows that the four keys lead to enjoyment in gaming by providing a challenge, surprise or mystery, emotion, or social connections which "push" people in a forward direction.
ReplyDeleteThe RPG I played lasted about 4-6 hours. I can't remember, but it definitely did not last for more than a day.
ReplyDeleteI think exiting and entering flow is contrary to the concept itself. One moment in the flow is supposed to occur in one setting. It would not longer be flow if it was broken up. That said, I have had experiences when writing a paper when I go through moments of flow and moments of distractions. However, I would be more inclined to think of each of those moments and separate occurrences of being in the flow, rather than one long, disjointed occurrence of flow.
As far as Neopets goes, the "moving forward" aspect of enjoyment played a big role in my addiction (former addiction, that is, although reminiscing about Neopets on this post has tempted me to start playing again).
ReplyDeleteNeopets had it all--social interaction, clear goals that were challenging but not to the point of frustration, mysteries to solve for the Neopet world, instant feedback from my Neopets, the games, and other players. It also provided an escape from the reality of my shortcomings through feasible ways to improve and feel good about myself, like playing more games to get richer, or feeding my Neopets desserts to make them happy. Just as in Csikszentmihalyi's examples of rock climbing, dance, and chess, Neopets provided the environmental factors conducive to flow.
I played Neopets so much when I was in seventh grade! And Meerca Chase was definitely the best game; you could get so many points.
ReplyDeleteI don't have much experience with RPG's, but other video games that I have played seem to fit in a bit with the idea of getting satisfaction from a good story. I like to play video games that have a good storyline, because being part of an interactive game is so much better than just passively watching a movie. It's interesting how video games can be so much more powerful than movies.
So, I'm just interested because I've never done anything like what you described. So, in this role playing game, is it some sort of virtual world with visual aspects too or was it solely writing portions of dialogue and narrative with other people? Either way, it sounds really interesting and like a fun way to explore social situations that you might not personally be in in real life. I can definitely see how this would bring you into the flow and makes me realize that I bet many writers and actors probably strive for flow constantly.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with you that the feeling of having control over something is often one of the main reasons keeping people in the Flow. From games, sports, to many other activities, the "control" factor is very important to attract players and keep players inside the Flow. I kind of wondering why this is such an important factor. Is it because we feel that we don't have that much control in real life thus looking for that sense of control elsewhere?
ReplyDeleteThe RPG I played was just writing. Basically, we would each play our character, writing about what they would do in a particular situation, sometimes incorporating their thoughts, etc. It would get particularly addictive when the story was going just as you'd hoped and everyone seemed to understand it.
ReplyDeleteI think control is an important factor in being within the flow because in order to be in the flow, we must enjoy it (in Csikszentmihalyi's definition of "enjoyment"). Enjoyment involves moving forward, and oftentimes, we won't get the same sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from moving forward if we didn't have some control in it. Like, there's a difference between laughing when a TV show cues you to laugh and laughing because you understood a subtle pun in a TV show. They may look the same externally, but internally, they are quite different. One requires comprehension skills and control of one's thoughts, whereas the other does not.