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Barry Schwartz's notion of Paradox of Choice is fitting in today's world where we demand- and can get whatever our little hearts might think they want. Choice is supposed to make life easier. For years we've lamented how companies ignored diversity, expecting us to adapt to them. Chris Anderson's long tail concept recognizes that this is not a one size fits all world and technology has enabled more people to get exactly what they want.
Reason.com calls this phenomenon consumer vertigo. Information is supposed to be liberating. It's supposed to make us better informed so that WE can choose what's best for us. An educated consumer is a satisfied consumer, non? The internet is an amazing tool that personally afforded me the opportunity to spend many, MANY hours goofing-er, analyzing the features of dozens of strollers so that baby B could roll safely in comfort. Several months later, I was finally able to decide on an item. For those who agonize over the vast array of choices, the final decision may still not bring relief, but doubt and dissatisfaction.
Perhaps it's human nature to be miserable. We're not happy when we don't have choice, but we're ineffective and unhappy when we have too many choices. The only difference is that with the latter, we're responsible for making that possibly life altering descision, while someone else is to blame for the former because we didn't do it - we had no choice. We barely have time to watch a few programs on 2 channels, much less endless programming on 200+ channels. Still, we feel we might be missing out on something worthwhile if we don't include booktelevision in our cable lineup.
Some reasonable solutions could include
1. Limiting the crazy information free for all by favoring quality over quantity
2. Let big brother filter out the scary stuff.
3. Move back home and let your mom take care of you
I would add more, but that might be too daunting.
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