Indeed, Csikszentmihalyi was investigating optimal human experience with this work. Everyone must want to know how to reach optimal human experience. That's rainbows-all-day-long territory. What is it, then? Flow is a state that arises from activities that use our core skillset but also challenge us, leading to increased motivation and immersion within what we're doing. The result is that we are more content, partially because performance is improved.
I stepped out of a cab in Graz, Austria, at 10 a.m. with five very jetlagged hours to kill before I could check in to my hotel. I had a few options: I could have asked the person at the front desk for some things to do, or I could have Googled it, but instead I decided to use generative artificial intelligence (AI). In seconds, it produced a five-hour itinerary of Graz's top tourist sites, arranged in a walking order with built-in stops at recommended coffee and lunch spots. Generative AI can feel pretty miraculous when it does things like this, and it is easy to see why people are tempted to use it for other tasks, including for schoolwork and learning.