Tzanetakis, Robert
Vitouch, Peter

Flow-Experience, the Internet and its Relationship to Situation and Personality


Abstract

This study is the first piece of German research on "Flow" in the Internet. How is it possible for users to experience flow when using different applications of the net? Csikszentmihalyi (1988, 1991) was amazed by the motivation, many people had when doing certain things they obviously liked to do, despite loss of time, exhaustion and lacking external reinforcement. Since the early 70's he studied the state between boredom and anxiety, "flow", in many populations and cultures. He and many other researchers were able to make validations of the construct. Despite of that, studies examining user's flow in the internet are rare. For the current research, I asked 71 students to complete a "flow questionnaire" - similar to Csikszentmihalyi's Experience Sampling Method (ESM) - four times in a row while navigating the web, followed by a personality questionnaire. My primary concern was to make a validation of flow within the setting of the internet. The connection of flow with certain personality and situational measures was examined. The results indicate a relationship of the ability to experience flow with the person's internal locus of control and with many situational variables, like webpagedesign, time spent on the website, activity on the net, and whether the person was alone or with other people, while surfing. Moreover the study shows some interesting relationship of flow with internet-addiction.