To understand this concept, let’s look at Flow, a video game created by Jenova Chen and Nicolas Clark.  The game's design is based on Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow. This is a simple game where users navigate a microorganism, consuming other microorganisms to move between transparent levels in the game in order to evolve. Part of being in flow is the user's choice of direction for moving to the next level. Without guidelines or menus, movement between the levels is non-linear. A gamer can choose to move up or down, eat other micoorganisms or not. This use of free will allows the user to have control of how to pace the activity. This choice, in turn, helps the person to immerse herself more fully into the game.

Games and literacy scholar, James Paul Gee, argues that games work in ways books work. Words are about a world. If you haven’t lived in that world, you are merely reading words on a page. In a New York Times blog post, Gee argues that flow is a crucial attribute of deeper learning: 

Flow really has three parts, all of which are crucial in game design and, indeed, in all deep learning. First, you need to be faced with problems that are challenging, that give you a little anxiety or anxiousness, but not so much as to deskill you. Second, you need to practice enough, with some failure, until you get to the point where the problems still feel challenging, but you know you can do them with enough effort. This is “flow,” the state in which you are most intensely focused and most satisfied. Third, you practice so much the problems are mastered and you enjoy that mastery for awhile before seeking newer, more challenging problems, which allows you to ramp up your skills.

Finding a flow often doesn’t happen immediately. As a new player to a game, your first goal is to better understand the rules and objectives of the game. Games are often iterative; you experiment the way you play through trial and error.  For example, in Super Mario Bros., players learn to run, jump and stomp on enemies in different worlds while unlocking surprises to power up and keep moving.  Over time, cooperation and tips from other players improve your strategy and skills in the game.  You learn through trial and error; you experiment with your surroundings, and then, before you know it, time has slipped away because you're in flow. You understand the object of the game, you have better strategies and skills, and now you cooperatively move through the game world with your friends without the distraction of a thought-out strategy.

How might we compare the experience of flow when reading a book with the experience of flow in playing a game? In either case, do we literally shut down our brains, or use them in different ways?