Developments and Trends in Flow Research over 40 Years: A Bibliometric Analysis

Since Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi outlined the foundation of the flow theory in 1975, the study of flow has grown into a massive multi-disciplinary field. Despite its prevalence in application domains such as human-computer interaction, a holistic overview of flow remains deficient within the academic community. This study aimed to use bibliometric techniques to analyze the vast amount of literature accumulated in flow research. A total of 2622 peer-reviewed documents published between 1982 and 2021 were retrieved from Scopus. The results revealed an exponential rise in the number of publications after the new millennium. Flow theory has been frequently connected with self-determination theory and the technology acceptance model. Co-citation analyses revealed the divergence of emerging virtual domains of flow from conventional physical domains, highlighting an alternative theoretical trajectory. The significance of flow in computer-mediated environments was further corroborated by co-occurrence analyses and citation burst analyses. Eight major themes were identified in the 2622 publications, including three theoretical themes (mechanism, positivity, and health) and five application themes (technology, gaming, sports, creativity, and education). Among these themes, technology and gaming reign supreme. We believe these findings first explicitly shed light on the shift from physical to virtual domains in flow research.