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A review by dalefu
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
3.0
A common issue I have with non-fiction books is after the initial idea is presented I get excited and end up anticipating a lot of the implications upfront, then the rest of the book is just confirming the exciting revelations the beginning of the book inspired.
This was an issue for this book, especially as it can get lost in tedium. For example, a chapter on using the senses to attain the state of Flow could be summarized as "make a challenge of your senses, such as a wine connoisseur does with wine, or an audiophile does with music." Instead, chapter after chapter gave several prolonged and predictable examples for each sense.
I also think I would have enjoyed this book MUCH more if I'd read it earlier in my life. The lessons this book imparts were sorely needed in my youth, but stumbled upon on my own in the past 4 years as I found my calling in the Game Industry, especially once I made the jump to Design and faced new exciting challenges every day. The value of Flow made itself known to me on its own, before reading this book.
There were still some interesting insights, especially into the practical implementation of inducing Flow in games to keep the Player engaged, but overall I found it hard to keep my attention on the book, which itself is sadly ironic.
This was an issue for this book, especially as it can get lost in tedium. For example, a chapter on using the senses to attain the state of Flow could be summarized as "make a challenge of your senses, such as a wine connoisseur does with wine, or an audiophile does with music." Instead, chapter after chapter gave several prolonged and predictable examples for each sense.
I also think I would have enjoyed this book MUCH more if I'd read it earlier in my life. The lessons this book imparts were sorely needed in my youth, but stumbled upon on my own in the past 4 years as I found my calling in the Game Industry, especially once I made the jump to Design and faced new exciting challenges every day. The value of Flow made itself known to me on its own, before reading this book.
There were still some interesting insights, especially into the practical implementation of inducing Flow in games to keep the Player engaged, but overall I found it hard to keep my attention on the book, which itself is sadly ironic.