Blog 2 - Consumer Decision Making

Barry Schwartz hits on many great points in his “Paradox of Choice” podcast. Before listening to his podcast, I had not deeply thought about the many negative effects that occur due to our currently broad range of choices. It was very interesting to hear his perspective. As a consumer and as a person, I related to almost everything that he was talking about. I have grown up in a time and in an industrial society in which people have practically unlimited choices. I have found that the easiest and least stressful choices in my life are the ones in which there aren’t many options to choose from. After thinking about it for some time, it is hard for me to identify a single product category that I can easily choose from.

I am a very picky person so I usually have a difficult time making choices in a quick and speedy manner. Needless to say, I have been a victim of the paradox of choice too many times to count. For example, I have spent hours deciding on which pair of shoes to buy due to the vast array of brands and styles to choose from. It is sad, but true. I like to buy shoes that have the right fit, the right brand, and the right look. Barry is right. After I buy a great pair of shoes, I still somewhat regret making the decision to buy those shoes. This is because I have the feeling that I could have done better. For me, this regret (sometime small and sometimes large) occurs with the majority of products that I buy. I am not as happy as I could be. Almost after every purchase I make, I feel somewhat dissatisfied with my choice. Is this because I didn’t find a pair of shoes with awesome features? Nope. Instead, this occurs because I have almost unrealistic expectations. These expectations come from the fact that there are simply too many shoes to choose from.

I really like how Barry related the paradox of choice to people’s entire lives. It really is quite true. Nowadays, most people are caught up in a very chaotic, fast-paced lifestyle. People want things done yesterday. The recent surge in technology has only added more fuel to the fire. Our lives are filled with making so many choices it can make our heads spin. This is not healthy mentally or physically. It takes a toll on our minds and on our bodies. Having a very large number of choices has its perks, but I believe that its negative results outweigh its perks. Because everyone is so preoccupied with thinking about choices in their lives, they forget to and probably don’t have time to “stop and smell the roses.” I agree with Barry when he says that complicated choices actually make us worse off. Our industrial society needs to somehow have fewer choices if it wants to allow its members to live their lives to the fullest. This would be possible with fewer choices because people would have much more free time to relax and spend more time with the people that they care about the most.

Here’s an option: maybe America should look into implementing some form of income redistribution that Barry touched on in order to reduce the number of choices in our lives. I think people would be happier and enjoy life more in the long run. Maybe then people would be able to “stop and smell the roses.”