Choice Overload

Everyone knows maximizing freedom means maximizing choice. I'd rather decide something for myself than have someone tell me what's best for me. But Barry Schwartz is about to blow this assumption to bits! Read this article or, if you hate reading like I do, watch this video.


Why endless choice does more harm than good:
1. Paralysis rather than liberation: Making decisions are becoming so hard to do. As a result, people delay making a choice until they forget completely about it. Sometimes this means they pass up opportunities to make a good choice that they they could have benefitted from.
2. Escalation of expectations: People doom themselves into feeling disappointment because they seek perfection. Endless choice means that one of these choices must be the absolute best possible choice. But nothing is perfect. This also means people can never be pleasantly surprised when something better is presented to them.

I really like how Schwartz explains the burden of choice. Schwartz uses the doctor/patient example and Bryan uses the cashier/customer example in his last post. But I think this can certainly be a good thing if it is passed over to an expert. For example, people watch the news on television because the anchor is choosing which stories people need to know about. Now Bryan raises an interesting point about how experts may not in fact be "experts". But at least journalists are "experts" who always try to keep the public interest in mind when making these judgements. Conversely, scientists may be experts on nuclear power but still choose to make nuclear weapons.

Everyone needs limits and constraints in life. When we were kids, our parents forced rules on our behavior and made most of the important choices for us. Why? Because little kids don't know what's best for them. But the parents do. If only there was this same parental figure for the internet. Right now, the internet is just a little kid rolling around in its own filth. There's so much crap on the internet that nobody should be reading. This makes it harder for people to find what they are looking for until they finally realize.....the internet stinks!