I think that sometimes, the fact that the medium you are using is not perfect/too realistic makes your imagination do a lot of the work, and that makes it easier to be immersed in the experience you are having.
That is why I jump into immersion really quickly when playing Mario or even more so reading a book, but a game like Skyrim has a really hard time hooking me in.
I think realism may in some cases be a kind of a red herring when striving for immersion.
For example, I, as a programmer, can be completely immersed in what I am doing without my text editor being "realistic" (whatever a realistic text editor could be :) ).
I think that the state of "flow" and the immersion in some kind of experience (movie, game, book) go hand-in-hand.
I think that sometimes, the fact that the medium you are using is not perfect/too realistic makes your imagination do a lot of the work, and that makes it easier to be immersed in the experience you are having.
That is why I jump into immersion really quickly when playing Mario or even more so reading a book, but a game like Skyrim has a really hard time hooking me in.
I think realism may in some cases be a kind of a red herring when striving for immersion.
For example, I, as a programmer, can be completely immersed in what I am doing without my text editor being "realistic" (whatever a realistic text editor could be :) ).
I think that the state of "flow" and the immersion in some kind of experience (movie, game, book) go hand-in-hand.