Is the Concept of Flow Still Relevant Television Studies?

¶ … Flow' still relevant? Television studies

Flow, as Csikszentmihalyi (1990) has instigated, portrays the condition in which populace are so engaged in an action that nothing besides it appears to be of major concern (p. 4). Flow was originally referred to elaborate the emotions of individuals who are associated to sports or a profession which requires utmost dedication during a most exuberant occurrence. Csikszentmihalyi (1977, p. 72) illustrates the status of flow as a tapering of the focal point of consciousness, so that extraneous observations and beliefs are cleansed away, by the absence of reticence, and by receptiveness to unequivocal objectives and explicit responses, and by a sagacity of management over the environment. Csikszentimihalyi's flow constituents have been sorted by Hoffman, Young and Novak (2000) into three basic phases, which namely are flow antecedents, flow occurrence, and flow consequences. Along with this sorting it also emphasizes that attentiveness and power are the essence of flow occurrence. Nonetheless, not a single doctrinaire execution of flow is present, based on which the execution of Csikszentimihalyi's findings, in an assortment, of stances have been regulated on the basis of preceding investigations. For example, in Chen (2000), to depict flow occurrence absence of reticence was utilized; in Hoffman and Novak (1996), tele-existence was entailed as a fresh and germane structure; and in Ghani (1995), to depict flow antecedent power was utilized.

The Information Technology and the World Wide Web have been the most noteworthy sections where the sundry forms of flow occurrence have been utilized. This flow has been scrutinized by Ghani and Deshpande (1994) in a setting resembling that of an office along with the presence of computer technology. The elements which determined flow in this representation entailed gratification and attentiveness which promoted the person to utilize the technology. Contrary to this in the World Wide Web framework, professed bounciness is observed as a facet of flow occurrence and it has been scrutinized by Chung and Tan (2004). Koufaris (2002) scrutinizes the pressure of flow occurrence on the internet buyers' objective to revisit, and mentions that the elements which has an impact on the buying behaviour on internet are namely; shopping gratification, attentiveness, and professed power. The flow phenomenon combined the internet has allowed the regular television viewers to not only download their favourite programs from the internet and play them when they feel that they can give it their full attention calls for whether the regular television programming is still one that stands a viable chance of retaining audiences or viewership.

Cognitive attentiveness is one of the crucial elements amidst the sundry assortment of flow occurrences and also TV programming; hence it has been utilized as it delineates the extreme level where the action attracts a person's concentration (Hoffman & Novak, 1996). Along with being abstractly congruous to flow conception, cognitive attentiveness is regularly being utilized as flow occurrence (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997; Novak et al., 2000; Skadberg & Kimmel, 2004). Albeit gratification is commonly utilized as flow occurrence but, we eliminate it in this particular paper. Hedonic information technology consumers mainly seek gratification in contrast to other attributes, and our description of PU entails convenience from gratification.

Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) declaration entailing that superior flow occurrence might result in enhanced personal attributes of a person, which would be of prolific and valuable nature, has been sustained by contemporary researches. Agarwal and Karahanna (2000) illustrated that cognitive attraction has a remarkable impact on PU in the World Wide Web. Yi and Hwang (2004) delineate the remarkable association of PU with flow occurrence in internet-based erudition framework. Li, Sun, and Zhang (2006) illustrate that cognitive attraction has a remarkable impact on student's opinion regarding the value of a university's website. According to the present investigations, when a person is extremely attracted towards watching mobile television, then he might believe that he is exploiting the facility of information technology to the fullest capacity (superior PU). In another way, when a person is extremely attracted towards watching recorded programs, even live ones, at his or her own convenience then having the programs flow or be scheduled to be in whatever format is not going to make much difference.

Is television still a source of depletion with the new downloading and recording structures set on the internet?

Television viewing has been marred by eminent cerebral personalities as a time-depletion and mental-rigidness routine and they have censured this action with robustness. Now, with the option of free downloads and recording to watch at a later time is what makes the mental depletion a very real possibility. Majority of people undergo intense mental stress in yielding that they have acted sluggishly by being dormant for hours when viewing television especially when they are waiting for the latest episode to download or record and then watching it the first chance they get.

Even numerous researchers have encountered such people who obdurately assert that they have never indulged themselves in extended viewing of television programs. This stance of neglecting television watching assists them in portraying a much healthier illustration of their personality characteristics, by either depicting their prolific reading habits or revealing their social grouping as a philosophical and thorough one. Nonetheless, the researcher here recognizes that majority of these people are exaggerating or even acting as a charlatan. He states this due to the fact that he has worked as a script writer and a producer for a considerable period of years, incorporating his contribution to the comedy programs like Room 222 and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. So, back then when he encountered any person who dejected his possibility of watching television, I became accustomed to the common reaction which utterly fluctuates and was contrary to their original belief, because when he revealed his programs, they responded that they have seen the entire season of one of those programs (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Now again this does not mean that they watched the entire season as it was released; they could've easily downloaded the series after the entire season was released and then watched it together. This again shows a mental depletion when watching TV. It further shows that the series being aired on a network does not necessarily matter in a world where downloading it is free and the viewers don't have the patience to wait for the week to week episode to be released.

Energetic mind relaxation techniques like going to an artistic museum, analyzing a scholarly periodical, reading books, and going to a concert, these actions are depicted as precious free time allocation due to their multifaceted constructive effects. Also they don't contribute to the topic at hand which is to understand if the TV programs flows and schedules are affected by the free downloads and recording technologies. Hence the ignominy caused by watching continuous television or downloaded television programs is not associated to the above mentioned actions (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Schooler & Mulatu, 2001).