How to Generate Flow on Social Media Platforms?

Flow is the state of complete absorption in which attention narrows, time seems to speed up and an activity becomes its own reward. Brands have long tried to create it on their websites and profiles, but the environment in which users now meet them has changed: recommendation systems decide what appears on screen, short videos play without pause, purchases are completed inside the feed and generative assistants answer questions before a search begins. This book examines what flow theory can say about social media platforms under these conditions. It presents the dimensions of the experience and the models that explain it, carries them into online consumer behavior and engagement on social media platforms, and analyzes how algorithmic mediation alters the conditions under which flow appears. A survey of users of Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and X (Twitter) provides a baseline recorded before this shift, and a research agenda sets out the questions that remain open.