The Tyranny of Choice

[imoldernu]

This is a long read that may be interesting to some.
As I read the article, I found myself mentally comparing today to earlier times in my life, and realizing that not all change is positive. It makes me realize how much more difficult it must be for younger people to make decisions.

How Americans Are Tyrannized By Too Much Choice | Alternet

This partial quote makes the point.

...the problem stretches from the supermarket, with its average of 42,686 different items from which to prepare tonight’s dinner and care for the home...

While the piece becomes quite technical, the main theme makes sense to me, and I feel a little better about dealing with the challenges of the future. Understanding that choices may be artificial could, and I hope can, lead to a reduction in stress.

Life is good, but it can always be better.

 

[gauss]

I believe that there were several TeD talks on this that you can see over at TED: Ideas worth spreading. They have both the videos and the transcripts available.

To avoid inundating you with choices, the talks by Barry Schwartz and Malcom Gladwell come to mind.

-gauss

 

[easysurfer]

Every time going to the store to pick out my favorite toothpaste this comes to mind. The chore is like finding the needle in the haystack of different brands.

 

[imoldernu]

I believe that there were several TeD talks on this that you can see over at TED: Ideas worth spreading. They have both the videos and the transcripts available.

To avoid inundating you with choices, the talks by Barry Schwartz and Malcom Gladwell come to mind.

-gauss

Thank you!

Her's a very worthwhile link to the Schwartz video (19 minutes)
Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice | Talk Video | TED.com
Funny, and direct... Interesting part about the Vanguard Funds and choices for 401K investments.
Also... the psychology of why we become confident in our own choices, even when they are wrong, or why we feel "at fault" in the same situation.

 

[W2R]

I have always regarded indecisiveness to be a character flaw. I blame my upbringing!

Generally I have zero difficulty in making a decision, once I have adequate information upon which to base it. That takes some digging, sometimes.

 

[MichaelB]

This is the answer when someone asks "what exactly is a first world problem"

...the problem stretches from the supermarket, with its average of 42,686 different items from which to prepare tonight’s dinner and care for the home...

 

[MichaelB]

I have always regarded indecisiveness to be a character flaw. I blame my upbringing!

Nature or nurture? Is it a character flaw or genetic trait? I can't decide...

 

[H2ODude]

Many's the time I've returned from store with some funky flavored toothpaste, trisquits, etc because I failed to realize all the variations. Generally we favor the originals. You know, plain ol Colgate toothpaste or "original' Trisquits. Someone needs to take these marketing department folks out and shoot them.

 

[marko]

Had a friend visiting from Eastern Europe a while back.

We went to a restaurant and, it was: "soup or salad?", "Caesar, house or spinach?", "blue cheese, Italian, or Ranch?"...I forget the next option for the salad, but my friend was clearly exasperated with the number of options and choices! He had kind of reached a "just give me a damn salad!" point.

 

[M Paquette]

Easily corrected.

1) read "Dietary Guidelines for America 2010"
http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2010/dietaryguidelines2010.pdf

2) Shop to fit meals to the guidelines, particularly the daily sodium intake of 1,500 mg for all persons 51 and older, and those of any age who are African American or have hypertension, diabetes, or chronic kidney disease.

This will weed out all those frozen prepared foods, the snack aisle, most breads, salted butter and substitutes, canned soups and sauces, salad dressings, etc. You'll be left with the produce section, and part of the butcher's (excepting brined poultry and pork, sausages, cheeses and such).

You may also have to make some changes at home, becoming familiar with that big non-microwave cooking thingie in the kitchen...

And people wonder what we do all day...

 

[Bestwifeever]

Had a friend visiting from Eastern Europe a while back.

We went to a restaurant and, it was: "soup or salad?", "Caesar, house or spinach?", "blue cheese, Italian, or Ranch?"...I forget the next option for the salad, but my friend was clearly exasperated with the number of options and choices! He had kind of reached a "just give me a damn salad!" point.

I completely agree with your friend. The only thing worse is listening to some people order their own variations and quiz the wait staff and ask for even more individualization of their orders.

Maybe the marketers are just trying to anticipate the equivalent of the "Hold the onions, cook the bacon extra crispy, make the cheese lowfat, and put the salsa on the side."

 

[Nemo2]

I completely agree with your friend. The only thing worse is listening to some people order their own variations and quiz the wait staff and ask for even more individualization of their orders.

Maybe the marketers are just trying to anticipate the equivalent of the "Hold the onions, cook the bacon extra crispy, make the cheese lowfat, and put the salsa on the side."

I could throttle those people!

 

[haha]

This is a long read that may be interesting to some.
As I read the article, I found myself mentally comparing today to earlier times in my life, and realizing that not all change is positive. It makes me realize how much more difficult it must be for younger people to make decisions.

How Americans Are Tyrannized By Too Much Choice | Alternet

This partial quote makes the point.


While the piece becomes quite technical, the main theme makes sense to me, and I feel a little better about dealing with the challenges of the future. Understanding that choices may be artificial could, and I hope can, lead to a reduction in stress.

Life is good, but it can always be better.

Alternate viewpoint is "Life is good, be careful not to screw it up".

Is there anyone here who is troubled by any of this? I have spent my life in America, where there is plenty of everything, and in recent years an abundance of choices. As far as I can see, neither I nor my parents nor my sibs nor my friends and acquaintances has every been anything but happy about this. Try a truly third world experience some time, especially if your job or roles puts you into contact with locals who are not trying to please you. Most of them would welcome some of this stressful choice you talk about.

Ha

 

[LOL!]

Had a friend visiting from Eastern Europe a while back.

I went to an outdoor café in Sofia, Bulgaria back before the Berlin Wall came down. Got a seat and looked at the menu. Lots and lots of items on the menu, but everyone around me was eating one thing: a kind of purple ice cream. When the waiter finally(!) came to take our order, I asked for chocolate ice cream. "We don't have chocolate today."
"Strawberry?"
"We don't have strawberry today" came the answer through lips pursed around a cigarette.
"Vanilla?"
"Not today."
"Well, what do you have?"
"Grape."

It was the absolute worst ice cream I have had in my life. We ate only a small taste and left the rest.

 

[aja8888]

I did some natural gas work in Trinidad a few years ago and we were out in a small town somewhere remote. Stopped in a small cafe and all they had on the menu was chicken sandwiches. So we ordered and the chicken was not boned. I asked if they had chicken without bones and the answer was no.

We are spoiled in the U.S.

 

[Totoro]

My number one reason for not going to starbucks (or similar): I can't order a coffee

Tried once .. blank stare in return from the barista. Ordered a cookie instead, only three kinds available.

Yes we are spoiled.

I sometimes go to the supermarket and just marvel at the choice I have and examine all the items and varieties of food I never bought in my life. Some of it I don't even understand what it is.

Then I walk to the register and look at the lady in front of me and the guy behind me in line. Usually none of my items overlap with any of theirs!

It's like people are living parallel lives and visiting a completely different supermarkt than I am. It's a miracle.

 

[springnr]

I went to an outdoor café in Sofia, Bulgaria back before the Berlin Wall came down. Got a seat and looked at the menu. Lots and lots of items on the menu, but everyone around me was eating one thing: a kind of purple ice cream. When the waiter finally(!) came to take our order, I asked for chocolate ice cream. "We don't have chocolate today."
"Strawberry?"
"We don't have strawberry today" came the answer through lips pursed around a cigarette.
"Vanilla?"
"Not today."
"Well, what do you have?"
"Grape."

It was the absolute worst ice cream I have had in my life. We ate only a small taste and left the rest.

My Pop always enjoyed vanilla ice cream, one day I ask him why don't you eat chocolate? Turns out back in the day, chocolate is what you added to vanilla ice cream to cover up the fact that it is stale.

 

[REWahoo]

My Pop always enjoyed vanilla ice cream, one day I ask him why don't you eat chocolate? Turns out back in the day, chocolate is what you added to vanilla ice cream to cover up the fact that it is stale.

On that same subject, I once worked with a guy who was a former quality control technician in a dairy processing plant. "Don't drink the chocolate milk" was one of his favorite sayings...

 

[NW-Bound]

I just glanced at my bookshelf to see that my copy of The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz was still there.

I do not agonize over choices of products, but then I am fairly easy. Sometimes too easy, even on big items like a new SUV which I should have spent more time to see other choices available on the market. I do not like to do shopping.

I did some natural gas work in Trinidad a few years ago and we were out in a small town somewhere remote. Stopped in a small cafe and all they had on the menu was chicken sandwiches. So we ordered and the chicken was not boned. I asked if they had chicken without bones and the answer was no.

We are spoiled in the U.S.

Are you supposed to bite into the sandwich carefully, chew then spit the bones out?

 

[aja8888]

Are you supposed to bite into the sandwich carefully, chew then spit the bones out?

Yes, that was the game plan, but what you really do is take off the bread and pick out as many bones as you can find, then proceed carefully.

 

[martyp]

I don't agonize over choices except in one particular situation . . . sandwich deli's. All my life I've dreaded calling out all the choices to assemble a sandwich to the counter person.

 

[MichaelB]

I like all the choice we have here, even though some of it is artificial. Supermarkets are the best. When we lived overseas and came to the US on family vacation we would always go to the supermarket and walk up and down the aisles to see all the things we could buy. It was such a contrast.

Even now, we still visit at least 3 different grocers twice a month.

 

[Nemo2]

I don't agonize over choices except in one particular situation . . . sandwich deli's. All my life I've dreaded calling out all the choices to assemble a sandwich to the counter person.

Mine's easy....."All little of everything, but LOTS of hot peppers".

 

[imoldernu]

Alternate viewpoint is "Life is good, be careful not to screw it up".

Is there anyone here who is troubled by any of this? I have spent my life in America, where there is plenty of everything, and in recent years an abundance of choices. As far as I can see, neither I nor my parents nor my sibs nor my friends and acquaintances has every been anything but happy about this. Try a truly third world experience some time, especially if your job or roles puts you into contact with locals who are not trying to please you. Most of them would welcome some of this stressful choice you talk about.

Ha

I could not disagree with that, Ha... I was looking at the subject from a different angle. Not as a comparison, but as an old timer, looking back at a simpler time.

My avatar is a symbol of my arrogant ambition. To be a second last polymath. A goal that I see being ever more impossible for anyone.

As a child, many hours were spent in my back yard, lying on the grass and seeing figures in the clouds. Many more hours were spent in the public library... going through the stacks, aimlessly, and picking out books that were far beyond my knowledge... to browse and look for interesting things.

At age 10 my folks invested in the encyclopedia Americana... all 26 volumes in small print. It was the world, at my fingertips. My choice to read or not, to explore, at my own pace, whatever peaked my interest at that time.

What I see now, is the boy of 10, in between after-school soccer, play dates
and school courses pointed to the 6 year goal of passing the SAT's... and with the entire knowledge of all mankind... from all ages... at his fingertips on his smartphone...
Overwhelmed by choices and playing Sniper Team 2 or Stickman Badminton.

I see a populace, fighting for the American Dream, but unaware of politics... not only National, but International, and except for the local referendum on the proposed new school gymnasium, not even aware of where their taxes go.

I see news sources limited to the bias of NBC or Fox and newspapers mired in hot topic editorials. No time to explore in depth, and as background, the previous headline story which was also designed to shock and amaze.

I see a society where people are expected to have opinions... expected to "know"...
............................................
And at the same time,
-beset by a government frozen in anger and mistrust
-faced with a world where poverty and fear is the result of religious choices
-dealing with laws and regulations which are evermore being twisted from constitutional guarantees, to the needs of: the corporate community, interlocking directorates, and the policy-planning network.

and... by the same logic, countered by a philosophy that the "State" exists to serve, protect, and nurture the people... and that equality trumps the personal freedom (of choice).
.............................................

Back to the subject of "Tyranny of Choice".
I don't believe the article was written as a SOLUTION, but as an attempt to explain that the advances of the past 50 or 60 years are not without a downside. The simple codeword is "information overload"...

I feel very privileged to have had the years to see the difference.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought

Onward and upward...

 

[target2019]

We do have enough. The next step is to have more choices. This does not necessarily increase happiness. With more choices available it takes time to find and evaluate options. More time is spent reading reviews, returning merchandise, and so on.

There is an ongoing evolution of retail that supports a return to simplified choices. How much time does one want to spend in these gigantic marketplaces? Food market chains have been expanding to serve this need to get in and get out as quickly as possible with the necessary food staples.

Contrast wandering through scores of aisles at Walmart with a jaunt through Aldi. You may substitute your own choice of stores for a better comparison.