Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (read: chick-SENT-me-high), expert on flow states and optimal experience and author of Flow and Finding Flow, inter alia, says that driving a car is one of the most enjoyable activities that humans will ever do and one that often produces flow and optimal experience.
Here are some quotes from the latter book to back the point:
Driving a car ... is a surprisingly positive part of life. While neutral in terms of happiness and motivation, it requires skill and concentration, and some people experience flow more often when driving than in any other part of their lives.
For many people, driving a car gives the most consistent sense of freedom and control; they call it their "thinking machine" because while driving they can concentrate on their problems without interruptions, and resolve emotional conflicts in the protective cocoon of their personal vehicle.
Driving a car. That driving is one of the most enjoyable experiences in many people's lives was suggested by one of our ESM studies (Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre 1989); a more in-depth ESM study sponsored by Nissan USA revealed many unanticipated details, some of which are reported throughout this volume.
Driving a car is so good for us because it requires skills perfected to automation, concentration and other states of the mind conducive to generating optimal experience while at the same time banishing boredom, anxiety and psychic entropy.
Now, if Elon Musk and other proponents of self-driving cars have their way, where will we be?!
We will be deprived of all that flow and optimal experience (which is hard to come by in most people's lives) and instead will be thrust into doing nothing while the car drives which will at best lead to passive consumption of redundant information from the car entertainment system and at worst to boredom, anxiety, panic attacks and other manifestations of psychic entropy usually descending on an unoccupied mind.
Thanks, Elon!
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