intellectual properties

the paralysis of choice

i am often totally – literally – paralyzed by choice.  jay goes crazy that i take so long reading labels in grocery store aisles.  i spend forever deciding between garments in stores.  i will, literally, stand, unmoving, in a department store or grocery store aisle or sit unmoving on my car while i mentally try to come to some decision. i find this happening more and more as i get older, and i am unclear as to whether this is me having too many preferences, always looking for the perfect thing in a sea of items, or whether modern consumer culture has thrust upon me this plethora of information i am mentally ill-equipped to deal with. this makes me feel, again, literally, retarded. i know it used to be referred to as the paradox of choice, but i feel it has now, in 2010, become more like paralysis for some of us.

this 24-minute TED talk discusses Choice, particularly the American valuation of Choice.  is limitless choice good for us? does being an “individual” chooser create stress – and, sometimes, as she gives a very emotional example of, guilt – in our lives? is more choice always better? how do different cultures feel about the modern cornucopia of choices?

Sheena Iyengar studies how we make choices — and how we feel about the choices we make. At TEDGlobal, she talks about both trivial choices (Coke v. Pepsi) and profound ones, and shares her groundbreaking research that has uncovered some surprising attitudes about our decisions.

an embedded sidetopic here is something that i have become acutely aware of especially while living in San Francisco: if you have so many choices/options/variations, suddenly minutiae become important, and thus create distinctions  where none previously existed, and people get really obsessed about these distinctions, to the point that their preferences become part of their identity, and create factions that, to the outsider, are invisible.  you got X brand of organic free-range sustainably farmed ice cream and not Y brand?!  that’s not 1/2 step dnb, that’s 1/4 step dnb!  AH!

so much more to say on this topic but i am le tired.

via promise @ my little pail

Filed in culture and random linkage, things you can do | Tagged with TED | Comments (2)