Communication
Theory
Communication
Theory
John L. Sherry
Fourteen:
Four
November
2004
Flow and Media Enjoyment
Pages
328–347
Media enjoyment is theorized by synthesizing empirical literature from
uses and gratifications with Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory. This article
argues that enjoyment of media results from a flow experience realized
when media message content balances with individual ability to interpret that message. Further, it theorizes that media experience, along with
individual differences in cognitive abilities, facilitates or prevents flow
state in media users. Therefore, it is a balance between individual differences in cognitive abilities and media message challenges that explains
enjoyment of media use. The authors offer the case of video game usage
as an exemplar, and examples of cognitive tasks are provided and linked
to game genre content.
Over the 70 years during which scholars have researched the uses and
gratifications of media, hundreds of articles and book chapters have
been written demonstrating the reasons a variety of people, from a variety of nations, have used a variety of genres found in a variety of media.
One of the oldest and most persistent research findings across all these
studies is that people primarily use media for enjoyment. Although robust, this finding has long been plagued with the criticism that the research tradition it comes from, uses and gratifications, is more descriptive than theoretical; more normative than explanatory. In other words,
we know that people use media for enjoyment; we don’t know why.
What does it mean to enjoy media? What is entertaining about media?
Why do we spend so much time pursuing entertainment? Are we mindlessly “amusing ourselves to death” (Postman, 1986), or is there a deeper
motivation behind this common form of human behavior? This article
addresses this shortcoming in the literature by posing a theoretical mechanism that can be used to explain one of the most popular gratifications
sought from media: enjoyment.
Copyright © 2004 International Communication Association
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Media Enjoyment and Uses and
Gratifications
The uses and gratifications tradition offers a great deal of research identifying enjoyment as a primary reason for media use. Such research is
rooted in the structural-functionalist systems approach to understanding the interface between biological entities and their context (cf.
Bertalanffy, 1968; Buckley, 1967; Merton, 1957; Monge, 1977). Common
among the systems perspective is the idea that human behavior may best be
understood as a system represented as “interlinked sets of components hierarchically organized into structural wholes which interact through time
and space, are self-regulating, yet capable of structural change.” (Monge,
1977, p. 20). Systems theory, as applied to human behavior, places individuals (having unique biological features expressed in both physical
and mental attributes) within a multilevel context and attempts to account for the cross-level influences on behavior (Dixon & Lerner, 1988).
Further, humans are believed to be self-regulating, that is, the individual
evolves in response to felt needs and contextual factors. In the case of
enjoyment of media, an individual’s decision to use a particular medium
is largely, though not completely, a function of the individual’s expectation of potential enjoyment resulting from use of that medium.
Rosengren’s (1974) uses and gratifications model exemplified systems
theory applied to human use of media. In it, he demonstrated the basic
tenets of the research tradition, including the idea that an audience possesses agency in seeking and using media to solve perceived problems
and that the results of that agentic use is what are commonly known as
effects. Further, these perceived problems are a result of the interaction
between basic human needs, individual differences, and societal pressures. Essentially, basic needs, individual differences, and contextual
societal factors combine to result in a variety of perceived problems and
motivations to which gratifications are sought from the media and elsewhere, leading to differential patterns of media effects at both the individual and societal levels. Media use is individual and contextualized,
though patterns of use can be found. Unfortunately, empirical and theoretical work in uses and gratifications rarely goes beyond creation of
typologies of reasons for use. Although Rosengren’s model (1974) posited causal linkages (e.g., effects are a function of reasons for media use),
the mechanisms for use have not been explicated. Theoretical legitimacy
hinges on moving beyond description to explanation. For example, the
foremost systems theory in science is evolution. The fossil record provides extensive evidence of what descent with modification looks like,
yet the fossil record is only descriptive. The principles of natural selection offer an explanation for how evolution occurs, how the fossil record
came to look as it does.
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Uses, Gratifications, and Media Enjoyment
Entertainment has long been identified as one of the main reasons for
using media. In their seminal 1961 study, Schramm, Lyle, and Parker
reported three basic uses and gratifications of television that they identified based on interviews with children around the United States: entertainment, information, and social utility. Entertainment was viewed as
an opportunity to escape from the boredom of everyday life to a fantasy
world of exciting and attractive characters. This set of gratifications was
later expanded by Greenberg (1974) to seven, three of which were similar to Schramm et al.’s (1961) entertainment gratification: arousal, to
pass time, and relaxation. Greenberg based his set of gratifications on
open-ended survey responses from British children. Building upon
Greenberg’s work, Rubin (1983) introduced a set of television uses and
gratifications that included such motivations as entertainment, to pass
time, relaxation, to escape, and for arousal. Work in a wide variety of
traditional media (Finn, 1997) and in new interactive media, such as
video games (Sherry, Lucas, & Greenberg, in press), has revealed similar
entertainment gratifications.
The foremost writers on entertainment as a media effect, Zillmann
and Bryant (1994), contended that entertainment is tied closely to emotional enjoyment. Bryant and Miron (2002) pointed out that the use of
the uses and gratifications term entertainment is not necessarily veridical,
but rather an artifact of data collection in which respondents, often children, attempt to name their motivations. What respondents often refer
to as entertainment is actually enjoyment. Entertainment subsumes a
wide variety of activities, both mediated and unmediated (e.g., playing a
game or a musical instrument), that serve both intrinsic enjoyment and
enlightenment (Bryant & Miron, 2002). Consistent with the uses and
gratifications approach, Zillmann and Bryant (1994) see media entertainment as purposefully chosen, either consciously or subconsciously,
to manage emotional states. Emotional stimulation or relaxation can be
actively regulated by varying the strength and target of dispositional
alignments based on the distance between characters and the self
(Zillmann, 1994). In this perspective, pleasure and pain, as well as arousal
and relaxation, are neither mutually exclusive nor polar opposites. Instead, enjoyment is seen as relief from overstimulation (through relaxation) or understimulation (through arousal).
Entertainment, then, is a multifaceted construct that emphasizes emotional pleasure, with media providing an escape to a fantasy world where
emotions can be experienced. Unlike media gratifications relating to learning or social utility, the entertainment gratifications tap a type of media
enjoyment that is both arousing and relaxing and can be used to filter
out the cares and concerns of everyday life. Although this set of gratifi-
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cations has not been labeled “enjoyment,” it is clear that these gratifications are sought for that purpose. Key facets of media enjoyment
from uses and gratifications research include the apparent contradiction that media are both arousing and relaxing. This contradiction may be inherent in the human condition as it is quite easy to
think of cases where we engage in arousing activities for relaxation,
such as going to an amusement park for vacation. Media are also
seen as an escape from the difficulties of everyday life, whether to
forget about problems or to live out a fantasy life that is not possible in
the real world.
Clearly, uses and gratifications research has repeatedly shown that
entertainment or enjoyment is a key component to media use, but how
does enjoyment occur? Why does it differ among individuals? Why do I
abhor musicals except when my daughter is performing in one?
Csikszentmihalyi (1997) offered a theory in which enjoyment is also
conceived as both arousing and relaxing, offering an escape from the
real world while engaged in fantasy behavior. Although not originally
designed as an explanation of media enjoyment, flow theory resonates
with reports of media enjoyment and fits the experience well.
Flow and Media Enjoyment
Flow is a concept originally advanced in the 1970s (Csikszentmihalyi,
1988a, 1988b, 1997; Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988;
Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002) to account for the pleasure found
by immersion in everyday activities. Csikszentmihalyi (1993) explains
that he began his research by focusing on creativity, but was convinced
that there was a more important topic for study: the enjoyment realized
by artists when they are immersed in the creative act. Analyzing artists
and musicians at work, he discovered that they became lost in their creativity—focused, yet cut off from the world around them. The doing of
the art was inherently pleasurable, with no external rewards required or
considered while they were intensely focused on creating. Artists described the experience as one of intense pleasure, the constant striving to
realize the vision of a painting or to play a musical passage beautifully.
Csikszentmihalyi expanded the types of work under consideration and
discovered that many mundane tasks, such as daily work and play, are
enjoyable if the worker is immersed in a manner similar to that of the
artists. Eventually, his research program came to focus on understanding the process by which certain behaviors make life enjoyable. From
this, he developed the concept of flow.
For Csikszentmihalyi, enjoyment, as realized in the flow state, is an
“autotelic” or self-motivating experience characterized by
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Figure 1.
Flow,
Anxiety,
and
Boredom as
Function of
Medium
Difficulty
and Skill
Difficulty of the medium
Anxiety
Boredom
Skill in medium use
•
•
•
•
•
•
Intense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the
present moment,
Merging of action and awareness,
Loss of reflective self-consciousness (i.e., loss of awareness of
oneself as a social actor),
A sense that one can control one’s actions; that is, a sense that
one can, in principle, deal with the situation because one knows
how to respond to whatever happens next,
Distortion of temporal experience (typically, a sense that time
has passed faster than normal), and
Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, such that
often the end goal is just an excuse for the process. (Nakamura
& Csikszentmihalyi, 2002, p. 90)
The flow state is typified by the striving to achieve a goal such as painting a picture or playing a musical instrument. It is realized when there is
a balance between the difficulty of the task and the skill of the participant (see Figure 1). Tasks that are too easy result in boredom, whereas
tasks that require more skill than the participant possesses can induce
anxiety, preventing the flow state. Consider the case of learning to play
an instrument. For a beginner, the ease of creating a good tone on a
piano (by simply pressing any key) offers an easy entrée to the instrument. On the other hand, many budding trumpet, tuba, or trombone
players have been turned away by the difficulty of achieving a decent
tone on brass instruments. As the piano player gains proficiency, there
are almost endless challenges to greater technique or reportoire. A simplistic instrument like the kazoo offers easy entrée, but few challenges,
thus preventing flow state for most. Activities that are most likely to
create the flow state are those that “(1) have concrete goals with man-
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ageable rules; (2) make it possible to adjust opportunities for action to
our capabilities, (3) provide clear information on how we are doing, and
(4) screen out distraction and make concentration possible.”
(Csikszentmihalyi, 1993, p. xiv).
Can media use result in a flow state? First, it is clear from the gratifications research that media use provides an enjoyable experience. Second, the gratifications of using media to escape and to forget are indicative of the intense focus and loss of self-consciousness in media use.
When viewing a quality film, we are often swept up in the emotions of
the characters, temporarily forgetting our own problems and how we
are perceived by others (e.g., an otherwise masculine man crying during
a movie). Third, many have experienced temporal distortion, losing track
of time while reading a novel or listening to music. Video games are
notorious time wasters, with players staying up very late at night to
conquer the next level. Finally, the entire uses and gratifications research
tradition is predicated on the empirical observation that media use is, at
least in part, intrinsically motivating. As such, choice in media use is
predicated on which programs, novels, poems, music, or games will allow us to achieve flow. Two factors that determine whether flow is
achieved are message difficulty and usage skills.
Difficulty of the Medium
Typically, in social science we do not think of watching television or
going to a movie as tasks with elements of difficulty. However, in the
humanities, there is a long tradition of scholarship that seeks to understand differences in complexity of media forms. In particular, the semiological tradition speaks of “reading” media and the difficulties that arise
when media depart from the standardized language of which we have
become highly proficient readers (cf. Bordwell & Thompson, 1993; Seiter,
1987). To these scholars, film and television have highly evolved and
formal structures that most consumers easily read and take for granted:
conventions of shot composition, editing, use of sound, and narrative
structure. Mastery of these conventions form the basis for competent
message-making and can be found in writing or production courses
around the world. For example, Field’s (1976) introductory screenwriting
guide argued that there is one narrative form into which all Hollywood
film fits. Based on Aristotle’s Poetics and modified for new media, such
as film or television, most up-and-coming screenwriters are taught to
follow this form.
Following this logic, films and television programs that depart from
these conventions would be more difficult to read than programs that
follow the conventions closely. Similarly, one can imagine that certain
books are easier to read than others and certain types of music are less
accessible than others. For example, most teen and adult readers have
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little difficulty with the Harry Potter series of books, but may find William Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man, or Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov too
difficult; Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat is a silly, fun, and enjoyable poem
whereas Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene or William Blake’s Marriage of Heaven and Hell may not be worth the effort; the swing jazz of
Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington is enjoyed by most people whereas
the free jazz of Ornette Coleman or John Coltrane is inaccessible for
most listeners.
What makes a mediated message accessible or difficult? Media messages that depart from the formal characteristics of the medium are clearly
more difficult than those that follow the form well. The departure from
formal characteristics can come in three forms: purposeful violation of
the conventions to push the medium forward (e.g., Faulkner or Coltrane),
lack of competence in the use of the medium language (e.g., a bad movie),
and formal characteristics that have fallen out of use (e.g., Spenser).
Training is often necessary for an artist to master the formal characteristics of a medium. Artists are given examples of good form and encouraged to copy that form (e.g., a woodwind player practicing her embouchure). A distinction is typically made between those who are pushing
the medium and those who are incompetent based on some prior demonstration of mastery. For example, before John Coltrane pursued the
free jazz style found in A Love Supreme, he demonstrated mastery of the
jazz form in several of Miles Davis’s more conventional jazz bands. These
departures are often formally studied by other message creators or academics and later incorporated into more mainstream forms. For example,
several techniques used by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane are now considered standard film fare; the massive floating spaceship of Kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey was new to science fiction viewers of 1968, but
such ships are now considered standard for science fiction.
Certain media forms may become obsolete or trite after long years of
use. The language of Spenser, Marlowe, and Shakespeare have fallen out
of common usage, rendering their poems difficult for the 21st-century
reader. Some story traditions become so common that writers begin to
parody or write against the form. For example, after years of film westerns with clear good guys (white hats) and bad guys (black hats), the
1970s saw the introduction of writing against type, such as the protagonist bad guys in The Wild Bunch or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid or parodies of simplistic western formula in films such as Blazing
Saddles. Trite stories lack the ability to engage the viewer because there
is no challenge in discerning the plot twists or character culpability in
the story. Therefore, media users find enjoyment in a balance between
familiarity and freshness (but not too much freshness).
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Skill in Medium Use
Do we differ in our ability to use messages within a medium? Certainly,
it is easy to make the case with the oldest medium: books. Children
progress from basic, rudimentary reading to competency to various levels of mastery. Beyond simple verbal comprehension, children learn to
interpret and understand increasingly complex narratives. As they gain
more experience, they develop additional mastery within a particular
genre that possesses its own formal characteristics and jargon, such as
science fiction, or in an area of advanced study, such as medical science.
Not all those at a 12th-grade reading level have the same ability to understand and appreciate reading Gray’s Anatomy.
Can the same be said of other media, such as music, film, or television? There is ample evidence to suggest that this is the case. Universities
offer courses in music appreciation and film interpretation designed to
give students higher levels of ability to understand and read these media.
In addition to an introduction of the basic formal features of these media, students are exposed to more “difficult” works such as those found
in the experimental realm. Whereas Hollywood films, such as Steven
Spielberg’s ET, are easily accessible and understood by most audience
members, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon or Jon Jost’s All the
Vermeers in New York demand greater flexibility of engagement from
the audience, challenging them to disregard narrative in favor of movement or visual form.
Sometimes skill simply consists of specialized knowledge that is required for entrée into the genre. Television serials sometimes make it
difficult for outsiders to enter the experience because too much background information from previous episodes is required to understand
the plot. Examples of such series include The X Files, Alias, and David
Lynch’s quirky serial drama Twin Peaks. Such programs often construct
their own logic, which is dependent on multiple characters and events
over time. As such, an exclusive club of viewers with a specialized knowledge forms around the drama. This is different from other types of serial
drama, such as soap operas, which seek to be inclusive by constantly
updating the plot. Whereas writers design soaps to pull in first-time viewers, other shows depend on a small, but highly loyal set of fans who see
themselves as part of an exclusive club.
Thus, skill in media use can be learned through usage or may be formally studied. For some, a particular medium may be easily accessible
while other media are more difficult. Take as an extreme example the
case of the idiots savants who memorize music by ear, but cannot read
books. Most typically, skill at media use will be a function of individual
differences in interest and ability, as well as contextual factors that make
certain media more accessible or desirable (e.g., peer pressure).
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Media Flow
Csikszentmihalyi (1997) theorized that the experience of flow occurs
when there is a balance between an individual’s skill and the difficulty of
the task at hand. If the balance does not exist, flow (or enjoyment) will
not occur. Enjoyment of media has many of the same aspects of flow:
focused concentration, loss of self-consciousness, a sense that one is in
control of the situation, distortion of temporal experience, and the experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding. Whether an individual
experiences entertainment from a particular media message is a function
of the individual’s ability to reach the flow state by using that medium.
Flow state may be prevented by a mismatch between individual media
use skill and the difficulty of the message. Therefore, an individual who
lacks skills to read or interpret certain types of media will not enjoy the
media experience. The individual may not have skills due to lack of
training (e.g., how to read), lack of experience (e.g., has not read enough
in a particular genre), or lack of native ability (e.g., dyslexia). Messages
may inhibit flow to the extent that they deviate from formal norms. This
may be due to pushing the boundaries of artistic expression, to poor
production skills by the author of the message, or formulas that are so
trite they lose the ability to challenge users. Users of media embrace the
familiar conventions of form in order to be able to understand the message, but seek novel content to challenge their imaginations. The combination engenders enjoyment.
An Example: Sex Differences in Video
Game Enjoyment
One of the most consistent results in video game usage studies is the
striking difference between boys and girls in amount of play (e.g., Bickman
et al., 2003; Griffiths, 1991b; Kaplan, 1983; Phillips, Rolls, Rouse, &
Griffiths, 1995; Wright et al., 2001). Some scholars argue this difference
may be due to access. According to the annual Annenberg Public Policy
Center survey on family media use, 76% of homes with at least one boy
contain video games as compared to 58% of homes with at least one girl
(Woodard & Gridina, 2000). Others argue that the gender gap in game
use may have less to do with access than the content of the games. For
example, video games have been criticized for having either highly sexualized or weak female protagonists, which can turn away potential female players (Cassell & Jenkins, 1998; Dietz, 1998). Others believe that
the emphasis on competition and violence deters girls from playing
(Bruner, Bennett, & Honey, 1998; Funk, 2001; Funk & Buchman, 1996).
However, when we look at genre preference, we find that the supposition that boys like video games more than girls do is not always correct.
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Although boys tend to prefer fighter, shooter, and action-adventure games,
girls show a consistently greater preference for card, puzzle, and quiz/
trivia games (Sherry, Lucas, & Greenberg, in press). Because the games
boys prefer take much longer to play than the games that girls prefer,
genre preference may also explain the different amount of time spent
playing games. It may not be that boys like video games more than girls
do, but that boys like certain video games more than girls do.
Why the difference in genre preference? Again, scholars have concluded that “boy content,” such as violence or sports, drives the sex
difference. However, a recent experiment demonstrated that violent content did not affect female liking of a movie differently than it affected
male liking (Sparks, Sherry, & Lubsen, in press). In fact, many females
like games with violent and sports content. One study showed that 45%
of 8th- and 10th-grade female respondents rated violent content shooter
video games on the positive side of a liking scale (5 or greater on a scale
of 1–7; n = 293), while 46% of the female 8th- and 11th-grade respondents rated sports genre games on the positive side of the liking scale
(Sherry, Lucas, & Greenberg, in press). Content cannot be the only reason for the differences noted in the literature.
Flow theory would suggest that there may be structural features of
these games that favor boy play over girl play. As was the case with
formal features of other media illustrated earlier in this article, certain
key structural features may prevent female players from readily entering
the flow state and enjoying game play. In order to explain the apparent
gender difference, these structural features must more easily facilitate
entry into the flow state by males than females. An analysis of the main
motivations for game play, followed by an examination of differences in
the game experience represented in formal structural features should
illustrate why some game genres are more initially enjoyable for males
than females.
Video Game Preference
Video game uses and gratifications research has begun to emerge and is
offering insight into the main appeal of video games. Selnow (1984)
published the first such study in which he surveyed 244 10- to 24-yearolds and isolated five uses and gratifications factors that apply to arcade
video game play: (a) is preferable to human companions (α = .83), (b)
teaches about people (α = .67), (c) provides companionship (α = .75),
(d) provides activity/action (α = .67), and (e) provides solitude/escape (α
= .63). A second uses and gratifications study of video games was published the following year (Wigand, Borstelmann, & Boster, 1985), revealing a similar set of gratifications for arcade game use: excitement,
satisfaction, and tension reduction. More recent research in the U.K. has
touched on uses and gratifications of video game playing. A survey con-
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ducted by Phillips, Rolls, Rouse, and Griffiths (1995) revealed several
uses of video game play, including “to pass time,” “to avoid doing other
things,” “to cheer oneself up,” and “just for enjoyment.” Furthermore,
Griffith’s (1991a, 1991b) research on video game addiction included
additional uses and gratifications: arousal, social rewards, skill testing,
displacement, and stress reduction. Among these are several familiar
entertainment gratifications including activity/action, solitude/escape,
excitement, tension reduction, to pass time, for entertainment, arousal,
and stress reduction.
In one of the more comprehensive sets of studies, Sherry and his colleagues (Sherry, Desouza, Greenberg, & Lachlan, 2003; Sherry, Desouza,
& Holmstrom, 2003; Sherry, Holmstrom, Binns, Greenberg, & Lachlan,
2003; Sherry, Lucas, & Greenberg, in press) have enumerated a set of
video game uses and gratifications based on focus group research and
surveys of over 1,000 participants ranging in age from 10 to 24 years
old. These include competition—to prove to other people who has the
best skills and can react or think the fastest; challenge—to solve the
puzzles to achieve goals such as getting to the next level or beating the
game; social interaction—to use video games to interact with friends
and learn about the personalities of others; diversion—the use of games
to avoid stress or responsibilities and to fill time, relax, escape from
stress, and/or because there is nothing else to do; fantasy—to do things
that they normally would not be able to do, such as drive race cars, play
professional football, or fly; and arousal—the stimulation of emotions
as a result of fast action and high quality graphics.
Sherry and his colleagues followed the focus group research with surveys of 5th graders (n = 141), 8th graders (n = 227), 11th graders (n =
318), and young adults aged 18 to 24 years old (n = 579). Across all
ages, both male and female respondents consistently rated challenge as
one of the top motivations for playing games. Challenge items included
“I feel proud when I master an aspect of a game,” “I find it very rewarding to get to the next level,” “I play until I complete a level or win a
game,” and “I enjoy finding new and creative ways to work through
video games.” Also ranking high in all age groups and among both male
and female respondents was arousal, indicating that players find gaming
an exciting and involving activity. Corroborating their findings, a recent
Pew study found that college gamers rated the video game experience as
challenging (45%), pleasant (36%), and exciting (34%; Jones, 2003).
Clearly, the appeal of video games results predominantly from the
challenge of solving the puzzle presented in the game. Grodal (2000)
explained that much of the fascination with video games can be attributed to the ability of players to control the game in terms of outcomes
(i.e., deciding how the “plot” will unfold), the speed at which the game
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progresses, and mastery of the game or mastery over other players. Grodal
(2000) further argued that video games are a tool for emotional control,
whereby desired arousal levels can be maintained through playing. As
such, video games are enjoyed most when the level and speed of the
game match the players’ optimal mental and motor capacity. Vorderer,
Hartmann, and Klimmt (2003) provided support for the idea that game
play is more enjoyable when there are a variety of ways to solve a challenge offered in a video game.
Video Game Enjoyment and Flow
Some might comment that Csikszentmihalyi seemed to have video games
in mind when he developed the concept of flow, though games were not
to exist in their popular form for several years. Paralleling
Csikszentmihalyi’s (1993) explication of activities that are most likely to
create the flow state, video games frequently (a) have concrete goals and
manageable rules that are often detailed both in the game, the game
packaging, and on game websites; (b) provide action that can be manually or automatically adjusted to our capabilities; (c) provide clear feedback in terms of running scores, collections of artifacts, or progress reports; and (d) have abundant visual and aural information that helps
screen out distraction and facilitate concentration. Most video games
are puzzles comprised of rules for play. Concrete goals in the video game
world vary from those that have an ultimate, attainable goal (e.g., action adventure games) or those that cannot be won, but instead are played
for high score (e.g., one cannot “win” Tetris, but the goal is to beat your
previous highest score). In both cases, the player is clear what the objective is at the beginning of play. Second, games can be easily adjusted to
skill level; often skill level adjustments are built into the game such that
a player has a choice of difficulty level at the beginning of the game.
Additionally, games are designed to gradually raise the difficulty level as
the player improves. This provides a constant, attainable, but more difficult, challenge for the player. Games also provide a great deal of control over the experience in varying the amount of boundary conditions.
For example, the world of Tetris allows players leeway in choosing how
to rotate and move the blocks, but this is done within the constraints of
the playing field, time, and block structure (e.g., box vs. bar). Games
such as Quake or Marathon allow a player to choose a nearly infinite
variety of ways to move through a fixed three-dimensional space. They
cannot go outside of the spaceship in Marathon, but they can move in
any direction that they choose through the maze of the spaceship’s hallways. Third, during game play, the player is given updates on overall
score, overall progress, and challenges still left to be met. For example,
adventure games require players to solve puzzles and gather artifacts in
order to progress to the next level. Often, there is an online reference
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that keeps track of the player’s artifact collection, tools (e.g., guns or
other weapons), strength/health, and the number of remaining enemies.
Finally, games constitute a sensory immersive experience, involving visual information from the monitor, auditory information from the speakers, and tactile information from the controller (e.g., rumble pads that
vibrate when the screen character is in a collision or gets shot). During
play, gamers intensely focus on the game action to the exclusion of outside stimuli, though they are not passively absorbed in the game but
instead are very actively aware of the game environment, puzzles, and
play (Dominick, 1984).
Video games possess ideal characteristics to create and maintain flow
experiences in that the flow experience of video games is brought on
when the skills of the player match the difficulty of the game. As with
other flow experiences, difficulty increases as the player’s skill increases.
What happens, though, when a player lacks the initial skills to be moderately successful with a particular game? Many people who have tried
video games report the frustration of not getting the game to work or
the lack of immersion and desire for mastery when success in the game
comes too easily initially. These are cases where the mismatch between
skills and difficulty prevents the flow state and instead results in frustration (too difficult for the player’s skill set) or boredom (the player’s skills
are too sophisticated for the difficulty level of the game). Only those
games in which the initial difficulty matches the player’s skills and then
continues to challenge the player are likely to produce arousal associated with the autotelic experience. In other words, games that facilitate
flow are likely to be adopted whereas games that don’t create flow are
likely to be discarded. Thus, the skill one possesses upon first attempting a video game will determine whether a game is enjoyed or not. Some
of the key skills for playing and enjoying video game play may accrue
differentially to males and females, resulting in trends in preferred game
genres.
Differences in Game Challenges and
Cognitive Ability by Gender
Challenges offered by the various game genres are clearly different. Some
games require knowledge, others focus on problem solving, and still
others require the ability to track oneself in three-dimensional computer
space (see Table 1). There are a variety of cognitive skills that would
facilitate rapid success in particular genres and not in others. We know
that people’s cognitive skills are normally distributed, with some skills
accruing on average to males while others are associated on average
with females (Kimura, 1999, 1993). The main sex differences that cognitive scientists have studied include spatial rotation, color memory,
disembedding, field independent spatial perception, object location
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Flow and Media Enjoyment
Skills
Advantage Genres
Preference
3D rotation
Color memory
Disembedding
Field ind. spatial perception
Object location memory
Targeting
Verbal fluency
Verbal memory
Male
Female
Male
Male
Female
Male
Female
Female
Male
Female
Male
Male
Female
Male
Female
Female
Shooters, fighters, sports
Puzzle
Action, shooters
Shooters
Card
Shooters, sports
Classic board games, puzzle games
Classic board games, puzzle games
memory, targeting, verbal fluency, and verbal memory. Male advantage
is found in spatial rotation, disembedding, field independent spatial perception, and targeting, with females being generally superior on the other
cognitive tasks. As Table 1 illustrates, genres that feature these cognitive
tasks tend to be most popular with males whereas genres that feature
the other remaining cognitive tasks are most popular with females. In
the following section, I will attempt to illustrate why these sex differences in cognitive skills may explain the sex differences in game genre
liking, limiting the analysis to the cognitive skills that show the greatest
sex differences.
Spatial Rotation. Rotational tasks assess ability to imagine objects from
a variety of perspectives (see Figure 2). Research has focused on ability
to rotate two-dimensional (2D) objects (Cooper & Shepard, 1973) as
well as three-dimensional (3D) rotation and more difficult rotation tasks
(Collins & Kimura, 1997; Halpern, 1986; Kimura, 1999). Although there
is very little difference between males and females in 2D rotational tasks
(as in Figure 2), there is a marked difference of nearly one standard
deviation between males and females on 3D rotation ability (Hyde &
McKinley, 1997; Kimura, 1999). In the case of video games, this difference would make it easier for males to achieve a flow state playing games
that rely heavily on 3D graphics, such as fighters, shooters, and sports
games. In our focus groups, we often hear women stating that these
games are “confusing” or “too difficult to play.” These comments may
be expressions of underlying difficulty in making sense of necessary 3D
rotational tasks in order to achieve a flow state in game play. For example, shooters take place in a large 3D space, such as a spaceship or
castle. Players are required to navigate through this space, keeping track
of where they are relative to a set of objectives or resources that they
learn along the way. Individuals who possess less rotational ability would
soon find themselves lost. Recent versions of fighter and sports games
present contestants in a 3D world, requiring players to translate move-
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Table 1. Skills
Required for
Game Play by
Genre
Communication
Theory
Figure 2. A
Simple TwoDimensional
Rotation
Task
1
a
b
c
d
If shape 1 is in the 12:00 position, which shape is in the 7:00 position?
ment and play in three dimensions. In terms of flow, the difficulty of the
task would be greater than their skill, creating anxiety and inhibiting a
flow experience for those with lesser 3D rotational ability, generally
females.
Object Location Memory. Many of us played a game called Memory
when we were children. The game had a number of matched pairs of
picture cards, turned upside down. The goal was to find matching pairs
by remembering where the overturned picture cards were. This game
demonstrates the cognitive skill of object location memory. Researchers
have found that women are consistently much better than men at object
location memory tasks, with about one standard deviation difference
between the sexes (Kimura, 1999). In video game play, this skill would
be particularly salient in genres that require place memory of objects as
in card/solitaire games, which females prefer. Shooters also require the
ability to remember place objects, but this is clearly a male category.
How might we explain this? One of the traditional object memory location tasks that demonstrates a large gender difference requires the subject to study a card with an array of simple line-drawing figures. Subsequently, the subjects are given a second card in which some of the objects switched positions with other objects. James and Kimura (1997)
performed a variation on the object location memory task in which they
moved objects in the second array to different positions (not simply
switched with others). When they did this, the difference between men
and women disappeared. Women appear to process object location and
identification together, whereas males process these separately. In shooter
games, objects regularly move around in the 3D space, perhaps not only
negating female advantage but setting up a disadvantage as the movement in 3D space is the critical skill for these games.
Targeting. Targeting refers to the ability to calculate the trajectory of
a projectile in order to intercept a moving object. This skill is demonstrated in football when a quarterback throws the ball to a player who is
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Flow and Media Enjoyment
running. In order to do so effectively, the quarterback must estimate the
speed and trajectory of the pass in relation to the movement of the other
player, estimating where to throw the pass so that it will arrive at a
location at the same moment that the player does. Targeting is one of
the tasks for which males have the greatest advantage over females, an
average of one standard deviation, even after controlling for sports experience (Kimura, 1999). From early games, such as Asteroids and Missile Command, to later games, particularly shooter, sports, and actionadventure games that feature shooting of enemies, targeting has been an
important cognitive skill for game play giving an advantage to males.
Games that females prefer generally do not involve targeting (e.g., card
games, quiz/trivia, etc.).
Multiple Skill Games
One difficulty that immediately rises when using the cognitive flow explanation for game preference is the case of games that require multiple
cognitive tasks. A prime example is the game Tetris, which is highly
popular among female players despite the game’s emphasis on rotational
ability, which is more a male trait. At the same time, Tetris gives an
advantage to females in that color recognition could improve game play
ability. So which cognitive task is dominant for adopting game play?
This is a question for which an appreciation of both cognitive ability
and social context comes into play. Tetris features a 2D rotation, a cognitive task at which males and females are roughly equal. Therefore,
there is not an ability factor inhibiting the use of the game by either
males or females. Over time, players with faster color or shape recognition ability would begin to outplay others. At this point, the social dimension of player superiority would take effect. That is, males may choose
to seek out games that they can play better than females (such as those
that focus on 3D rotation).
Most current games require a combination of cognitive skills for successful game play, so disentangling skills that lead to flow will be difficult. For example, the highly popular shooter genre game Quake requires 3D rotation ability, targeting, and disembedding, as well as object
location memory and color memory. Quake places the player in a macabre three-dimensional world in which he is to track other players, controlled by either humans or the computer, and kill them with a variety of
weapons. The worlds of Quake contain rooms, stairs, trampolines, and
transports that players use to move around. Throughout the worlds are
caches of weapons, ammunition, and armor, some out in the open and
others hidden. Weapons range from conventional shotguns and automatic rifles to rocket launchers, ray guns, and guns that shoot lightening. Action is fast paced, with enemies pursuing the player at all times
and explosions from ammunition going off. Three-dimensional rotation
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Communication
Theory
is needed to effectively navigate through the worlds in which Quake is
played. Targeting skills are required to shoot moving enemies. The clutter of the Quake world requires disembedding, finding the location of
weapons caches requires object location memory, and firing at the correct enemy (as opposed to a friend) requires quick color memory. Despite the complexity, Quake continues to find a diverse audience. At last
year’s QuakeCon convention of game players, entire families made the
trek to Texas to take part in game play with other families that they had
met in networked game play.
Flow and Gender Differences
Flow theory dovetails nicely with uses and gratifications research to offer an explanation of gender differences in video game enjoyment. Uses
and gratifications research points to the function of the medium where
enjoyment is found: challenge. From there, flow theory analysis points
to the mechanisms of that enjoyment and formal medium features that
may facilitate or inhibit flow. At that point, individual differences and
context factors can be considered to understand patterns of medium
and genre preference. In this case, general patterns of gender differences
in video game use and preference mirror general trends in the cognitive
differences between the sexes that contribute to the enjoyment of games
and achievement of the flow state. However, it would be naïve to suggest that these differences are the result of gender. The real culprit here is
likely individual differences in cognitive processing from which the gender patterns emerge. That is, individual differences in cognitive processing are confounding the relationship we see between sex and genre preference. Whereas females in general may dislike 3D games, females who
possess excellent 3D rotation abilities are more likely to enjoy shooter
genre games than males who lack 3D rotation ability. In this case, the
flow/uses and gratifications approach will help researchers move from
very general explanatory variables (e.g., gender) to more specific variables (e.g., cognitive abilities).
Conclusions
Flow offers a theoretical explanation for a gratification that has been
reported in many studies: enjoyment. The requisite balance between
challenge and skills encourages researchers to consider both message
and receiver characteristics in the use of media. It is expected that each
medium will offer its own challenges and require different skills, but
that there will be some commonality in these challenges and skills. Departure from formal characteristics will likely inhibit flow in a variety of
media, though those formal characteristics may differ between media.
Similarly, each medium requires some training or experience in order to
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Flow and Media Enjoyment
have the skills necessary to read that medium, but those skills will differ
among media.
Ultimately, understanding of the mechanisms underlying media enjoyment and preference will facilitate better design of educational and
prosocial media. The engagement associated with the flow state facilitates greater engagement with, and longer use of, the material. Educational media designed without understanding how the flow experience
is facilitated through the uses and gratifications of a particular medium
and individual cognitive abilities stands to prevent engagement with
material. Conversely, weaknesses in an educational subject area can be
overcome by designing media that engage through flow and cognitive
challenge while teaching content.
John Sherry (PhD, Michigan State University) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to the author at the Department of Communication, Michigan State University, 473 Communication Arts and Sciences, East Lansing, MI 48824; email: [email protected].
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