When Are People Happiest? Mihaly Answers with “Flow Theory” - ITechnical World

 

Prof. Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi devoted most of his life to finding the answer to an important question: “We live in better conditions than people in ancient times, but why are we not happier than them? “What makes people truly happy?”

In his book FLOW: The Science of Happiness, Mihaly tries to answer these questions. I will try to share the sections mentioned in the book under small headings and add my own notes here and there.

HappinessProf. Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi devoted most of his life to finding the answer to an important question: “We live in better conditions than people in ancient times, but why are we not happier than them? “What makes people truly happy?”

In his book FLOW: The Science of Happiness, Mihaly tries to answer these questions. I will try to share the sections mentioned in the book under small headings and add my own notes here and there.

Happiness

The biggest question the book seeks to answer is about happiness . The author says:


“The aim of this book is to use some of the tools of modern psychology to answer this age-old question: When are people happiest? ” (Akış: The Science of Happiness, Page: 18)

In the book, the author explains one of the difficulties of achieving happiness with chronic dissatisfaction . When some of our needs are met temporarily, we are happy at that moment, but after a short time, it can become increasingly difficult to be happy because we always want more.


Experience Sampling Method

“When are people happiest?” The author conducted some studies such as the Experience Sampling Method to search for the answer to this question . In this method, people were asked to carry an electronic pager for a week. When this device gave a signal, the people participating in the experiment were asked to write down what they were thinking and feeling at that moment. So what kind of results came out of this study? Let me answer this by quoting from another book. Cal Newport describes the results of this study in his book Pürdikkat as follows : “The most valuable moments usually arise from pushing the limits of one's body or mind during the voluntary effort made to achieve a difficult and important task. (Pürdikkat, Page:74)”

I attach great importance to the word "voluntary effort" in this answer. If I'm not misinterpreting, I actually evaluate the subject as "doing a job we love", "performing a task we love", "researching a subject we love". Because I feel that I am happiest in these moments.

Flow and Flow Theory

The author of the book Flow is Prof. Dr. After these studies, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi introduces us to the concepts of Flow and Flow Theory .The moments that are intended to be explained with the flow ; We can roughly define it as the moments when we can focus on doing something, at the same time we are happy to do it, and generally lose track of time.

We can think of Flow Theory as staying in the flow. There are some conditions for staying in the flow. If we give an example of a game where we can capture flow moments very easily, Candy Crush can be a good example of this. There is no structure in this game that increases in difficulty in a linear manner. First, it warms you up to the game, then it tries to keep you in the game (that is, "in the flow" due to the subject of the book) by imposing certain restrictions such as difficulty level and number of moves in new levels so that you do not get bored because it is too easy . As can be seen from the image below, there are two dimensions in Flow Theory : Challenges and Skills .

According to the graph, the sections we should avoid appear to be Boredom and Anxiety . The point we must constantly stay in is the Flow Channel. If we give an example from Candy Crush again, the game tries to keep the players in the Stream Channel in a balanced way without constantly remaining at a level that is too easy or too difficult.

Hasan Başusta, in his article Searching for a Meaningful Life (m), summarized very well what can happen to us in Flow Theory as follows:

• If difficulties > our skills → the result is disappointment and burn- out
• If difficulties < our skills → the result is bore- out

However, I suggest you listen to these concepts from Mihaly's own words. I'm sharing his TED talk on Flow below.

Haz

Staying in the flow is very important for us to be able to enjoy something we are dealing with at the moment. Happiness has a great relationship with pleasure, and the concept of pleasure is frequently mentioned in the book.

Everyone can find pleasure in different activities. We may experience pleasure while taking a walk, playing a game, drawing a picture, eating a meal we like (as in the dinner scene in the Matrix), spending time with our child, and perhaps even working.

Game and Gamification

Actually, I have a special reason for opening this subheading.

I was introduced to many new concepts when I had to do literature research for my master's thesis on the subject of Gamification . In my opinion, I was expecting to read books that only included " game ", " game design " and " gamification " topics. However, I would just realize that the science of " Psychology " constituted a large part of the work , and I would understand that the subject was deeper than I expected. It was during such a period that I read the book Flow .

In the book, Mihaly says about games: “ Games fill the gaps in the cultural scenario. They enhance action and concentration during leisure, when cultural instructions provide little guidance and human attention threatens to wander through unknown realities of chaos. (Flow: The Science of Happiness, Page: 126)”

If you are interested in gamification, you will definitely come across Mihaly and Flow Theory.

Conclusion

If you are interested in topics such as happiness, pleasure, how to make life more fun and how to increase the quality of life, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book Flow: The Science of Happiness is among the books you should definitely read. Good examples are waiting for you under many different topics.

By the way, even spelling the author's surname correctly was a challenge for me. I would like to end my article by saying I hope I wrote it correctly.