Listening to: Buddy Holly - Everyday
Monday, 29 March 2004
Too much choice
After talking to Liz the other night about an article about having too much choice, I see that slashdot has a story about it. The excerpt of the SciAm article seems really good. I might pick up this month's mag. It's a good mag, a step up from pop sci to be sure, but not out of the "normal" person's reading ability.
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I sort of agree with the article, but i think it applies moreso to people who are uneducated in areas that they need to make choices in. If i knew nothing about computers and went to buy one, i would be glad that there was only one type, since i knew i'd be getting *the best one*. If there were many options, then i would always worry that i was buying the wrong one or an inferior one for my money. Clearly, i could ask someone, but there aren't people to ask in all situations, and even if you do ask, how do you know he's just not selling you crap? On the other hand, if i was educated in computer components, then i would want as many choices as possible, since, in that case, i could make the best choice for myself.
ReplyDeleteFrom this justification and the results at the end of the report (depression, etc), can we infer that people are less educated in general about the things in which they have to make choices about? Maybe there is just too much to know nowadays. Hmmm....
Cooter.
I don't think the article has anything to do with education. I think it has more to do with the barrage or choices we have in *everything* starting even with your morning coffee (coffee, which one, flavoured?, whole, 2%, skim milk? how about a lattee? with soy milk? vanilla bean, chai, banana cream, regular? cappuccino, frappa-something....and that's just breakfast (for some of us). OK, so you've figured out what your coffee style is, but so many more choices await you before your day is out. General craziness abounds, and I agree with the article that it doesn't make us any happier.
ReplyDeleteWell i can see it two ways, since there are two different areas for choice (that i can think of). The first type is for things where there actually is a *best* choice for you, like when buying a computer. This is the type that i was talking about. The second type is for things where there is no actual *best*, just preference, like which type of coffee/ice cream/etc. should i have.
ReplyDeleteSo you must think that the article focuses purely on the second type, since i argue that the first does have to do with education. Hmmmm, maybe you are correct, and i agree with you in this case. On the other hand, i can still see the article applying to the first case, in which case i still agree with the justification from my original posting. And, i'm interested in what people have to say about the inference in the second paragraph of the original posting.
There is definitely a huge amount of information that arguably we *should* know... on the other hand, "ignorance is bliss"? Great, say you (anyone) know a lot about computers (a category I don't fall into), and can therefore understand the choices available (which I don't fully believe) and can choose the *best* computer. Can you? Is it worth the effort it took to get it? What if you decide to spend that extra money from the piggy bank, to get that next-up *best* one. (I know that's not what you said - just a "for instance" here). AAHHH!! OK, maybe this one choice doesn't depress you (anything that doesn't crash when i open chem draw makes me happy right now) but what if you feel you have to do this much research for everything you do?? you'll go crazy and you won't be any happier than if you had fewer computers (a red one,a blue one, a shiny one, one that doesn't crash) to choose from. That's the point. Maybe you're right and we can say people are less educated... but maybe that's OK (sometimes) but I just think society is crazy and simplifying our lives would be wonderful. I know I certainly need to be happy with what I've chosen and move on (and also get back to writing my thesis). Ooh, argumentative Liz should go buy herself a coffee ($2 lattes at second cup!).
ReplyDeleteFrom how liz explained it to me (because she bought the mag and read the whole article) is that as you increase choice, the benefits level off. But the drawbacks go WAY down. Add the two together, you get a graph that goes up a bit, and then steeply down.
ReplyDeleteI don't care how much an expert I am in something, most of the time evaluating what is the *best* choice I find tiring in the very least.
I was sort of glad that for our degree there were *some* choices, but not too many. Less thinking, less decisions, and less worrying that I didn't make the *right* decision.
Have you ever gone out to eat with me? I pretty much always just ask the server what their favourite is and then order that. I eliminate most of the menu in a couple of seconds, and with multiple choice (a, b, c, d, or e), it's a lot easier / faster. Less decisions make Jim happy. When one is pretty much the same as the others, but for me to decide I would worry that I did not make the optimum decision.
Like Liz told me from the original article, we used to only have a few choices like fight / flight; eat / sleep / hunt / gather / make babies (always a favourite among the hunter / gathers); ...
I think the whole gist of the article is this:
Choice does not scale well for humans.