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Comment by soverance | Hacker News Reader

I disagree that these flow states are difficult to generate. While they are extremely more common within designed experiences (such as video games), they can and have been applied with great effect to more "common" tasks, such as acting, playing music, or sports.

The very best article I've found on the subject is here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/166972/cognitive_flow_...

Highly recommended reading.

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I've never been able to replicate the flow states I used to have from Starcraft/Civilization elsewhere (I've played very few games in the last couple years.) I don't miss the time spent playing them, but my life is much emptier without them.

Sort of exception is when everything breaks down at once and I have a ton of stuff to fix/do in emergency style. That's comforting.

What I'm saying is that 'common' tasks that generate flow states take much longer than video games to generate the same cognitive effect. For example, when I play guitar I _must_ deliberately practice. I play the same 30 second melody half as slow, then only a quarter slow, and then finally i try really hard to play it at the right rhythm, and after a little more practice I'm playing it mechanically. I now can enter a flow state much easier.

Looking at your link- I start out with low skill, but with something that has high difficulty. I wratchet my skill upwards until I enter flow state. Video games, on the other hand, use dynamic difficulty settings to change the difficulty to my skill. They generate the flow state programmatically.

Nice article though.

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