09-27-2005, 10:05 AM
Sort of related to executive dysfunction (see Attention-Tunnel's thread in the General forum)
Independent on Sunday 18/9/05
'There comes a point where adding options seems to produce paralysis and confusion rather than liberation and satisfaction'
The right not to choose
Whether you're buying trainers or toothpaste, the high street offers an overwhelming array of options. But now shoppers are rebelling against the tyranny of choice, as Paul Sussman discovers
Probably my favourite restaurant in the entire world sits on the banks of the Nile at Luxor in Egypt. Called, not particularly imaginatively, the Tutankhamun, it has a picture-postcard setting, a wonderful owner - Mahmoud, an old friend - and great Egyptian food. What really sets it apart for me, however, is the fact that it doesn't have a menu. You arrive, you sit down, Mahmoud bustles over and tells you what you're going to eat. No questions.
I often think of the Tutankhamun whenever I eat out in Britain, an experience that invariably involves at least a full 20 minutes of intense soul-searching as you wade your way through a menu the size of a small novella, followed by an evening of doubt and self-recrimination as you wonder if maybe you've chosen the wrong dish.
HG Wells once wrote, "The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast, is choice." However, we seem to have reached a tipping-point in Western civilisation where we are now faced with such a bewildering display of options and alternatives that choice has become more of a hindrance than a boon.
"We've always taken it for granted that since choice is essential to human well-being, then the more choice we have the better off we are," says Professor Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: When More is Less.
"It is only in the last decade that people have started to study the issue and realised that there comes a point where adding options seems to produce paralysis and confusion rather than liberation and satisfaction."
Every aspect of our contemporary consumer culture - whether it be shopping for televisions, clothes or energy suppliers - now brings with it such a deluge of choices that it renders the experience overwhelming. Twenty years ago, if you wanted a new pair of trainers, you'd wander into a shop and browse a dozen or so options. Today, in stores such as King of Trainers in Oxford Street, London, that selection has ballooned to well over 500 separate makes of shoe, racked up around the walls like the fallout from an exploding prosthetic foot factory.
A brief trawl around my local supermarket reveals, in no particular order, 60 types of toothpaste, 40 vinegars, 50 olive oils, and 30 makes of toilet roll. And that's before you even start getting into the really complex areas of biscuits, cereals and moisturisers. Even Ann Summers now stocks over 30 different types of vibrator.
In a little bit of market research in central London, for instance, six out of the ten people I spoke to said that they were utterly bamboozled by the extent and variety of goods on offer.
"There was just too much choice, so I ended up not making a decision," said 31-year-old teacher Nicole, as she emerged from the King of Trainers shop. "I knew what I wanted when I went in, but then there were so many different possibilities I got confused and gave up."
Nor is it just indecision that excessive choice can engender. "The fact that there is so much choice, and that the choices are so confusing, has been proven to have a negative effect on people's moods," said Schwartz. "Even when you've actually bought something there's still that lingering sense of worry and regret that maybe you didn't choose the right option."
Psychotherapist Liz Irvine goes even further. "There's a really depressive element in having too much choice," she argues. "I see it all the time in my patients. What lies at the heart of many people's problems is that mentally they cannot cope with the number of choices they are being asked to make in the modern world."
More and more people are now making a conscious choice to opt out of making decisions. To call it a consumer revolt would be to overstate the case - no-one, as far as I am aware, has yet set themselves alight in Sainsbury's in protest at the number of pasta sauces on display. There does nonetheless appear to be a growing sense of exasperation that is leading people to limit the number of options with which they allow themselves to be confronted.
Dr James Intriligator, an expert of consumer pyschology at the University of Wales at Bangor, says, "Studies show that when people are overwhelmed with choice, they take refuge in simple behaviour. My sense is that something of a divide is opening up between those who love going though every possible variable on the Starbucks menu and those who think, To helll with it, just give me a cup of coffee."
"When I go out with friends, we always go to the same Thai restaurant," says singing instructor Hannah Mazey, 34. "And I'll always choose the same dish. It means that I can relax and talk to people without worrying about having to make decisions."
Web designer Martin Leeman, 40, feels the same. "I used to be a great one for buying designer clothes," he says. "But the experience became so complicated and time-consuming that now I'll just go into Gap twice a year and buy three pairs of exactly the same jeans, and that's it. It was only when I stopped having to choose that I realised how stressed out the whole thing was making me feel."
"It's a complicated picture," says Jenny Driscoll of Which?. "But, in certain areas, people do seem to be choosing to avoid choice. With supermarkets, for instance, our research shows that 70 per cent of shoppers just want to get through the trip as quickly as possible, and they do that by going straight to the brands they know so as to scale down choice. It's the same with current accounts. There's a huge variety out there, but people are consciously choosing to stick with the big four banks, even though they could get a better deal elsewhere."
An increasing number of businesses seem to be waking up to this "we want less" dynamic. "The sense I get again and again, " says Barry Schwartz, "is that people in business - whether it be selling flowers or appliances or clothing or food - all recognise this problem.
"They're trying to simplify, find ways to organise and display their products so that even if they offer a lot, consumers don't actually feel they're being offered a lot."
Stores such as Tesco Metro and Sainsbury's Local, for example, are - in part at least - a response to the public's desire for a more focussed, less complicated shopping environment, carrying about 10 per cent of the 30,000 products available in full-size supermarkets. Likewise, an increasing number of restaurants are offering limited or set menus.
"Ninety-nine per cent of our customers now go for our set menu," says Samir Mahdi, manager of Souk, a Moroccan restaurant just round the corner from the Ivy. "People just sit down, order their drinks and start eating. It makes the whole experience a hell of a lot more enjoyable and less stressful."
'The Paradox of Choice' by Barry Schwartz is published by HarperCollins, priced £7.99.
WHY WE'RE SPOILT FOR CHOICE
Trainers There are so many types of trainer out there it's enough to make you want to turn around and run away. It's not just the number of different brands on offer - Adidas, Puma, Lacoste, Reebok, Nike, Evisu, K-Swiss, Airmax, G-Unit - but the number of different styles within each brand. With Adidas, for example, you can choose from, among others: Stan Smith, Forest Hills, Trimm-Trab, ZX Runner, ZX 500, ZX 700, X-Comp, Half Shells, Superstar 2, Tuscany, Titan and SL8.
Tuna Once upon a time tinned tuna was... well, tinned tuna. Now, in Sainsbury's alone, you can buy tuna in brine, olive oil, light olive oil, spring water or sunflower oil, not to mention tuna with tikka, lime mayonnaise, light lemon mayonnaise, lime and black pepper, coronation sauce, coronation and diced pineapple sauce, mango chutney or tomato and herb dressing. And that's before you've even started thinking about whether you want your fish "chunked" or "flaked".
Bras The Marks and Spencer range alone includes the underwired, the smooth underwired, the non-padded underwired, the smooth padded balcony, the lightweight smooth padded plunge, the smooth underwired padded plunge, the push-up underwired, the padded plunge with seam-free cups (and sheer straps), the ultrasonic sports bra, the stick-on bra, the T-shirt bra and, of course, the (take a deep breath) ego-boost ultimate cleavage push-up underwired with moulded liquid-filled bra cups.
Independent on Sunday 18/9/05
'There comes a point where adding options seems to produce paralysis and confusion rather than liberation and satisfaction'
The right not to choose
Whether you're buying trainers or toothpaste, the high street offers an overwhelming array of options. But now shoppers are rebelling against the tyranny of choice, as Paul Sussman discovers
Probably my favourite restaurant in the entire world sits on the banks of the Nile at Luxor in Egypt. Called, not particularly imaginatively, the Tutankhamun, it has a picture-postcard setting, a wonderful owner - Mahmoud, an old friend - and great Egyptian food. What really sets it apart for me, however, is the fact that it doesn't have a menu. You arrive, you sit down, Mahmoud bustles over and tells you what you're going to eat. No questions.
I often think of the Tutankhamun whenever I eat out in Britain, an experience that invariably involves at least a full 20 minutes of intense soul-searching as you wade your way through a menu the size of a small novella, followed by an evening of doubt and self-recrimination as you wonder if maybe you've chosen the wrong dish.
HG Wells once wrote, "The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast, is choice." However, we seem to have reached a tipping-point in Western civilisation where we are now faced with such a bewildering display of options and alternatives that choice has become more of a hindrance than a boon.
"We've always taken it for granted that since choice is essential to human well-being, then the more choice we have the better off we are," says Professor Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: When More is Less.
"It is only in the last decade that people have started to study the issue and realised that there comes a point where adding options seems to produce paralysis and confusion rather than liberation and satisfaction."
Every aspect of our contemporary consumer culture - whether it be shopping for televisions, clothes or energy suppliers - now brings with it such a deluge of choices that it renders the experience overwhelming. Twenty years ago, if you wanted a new pair of trainers, you'd wander into a shop and browse a dozen or so options. Today, in stores such as King of Trainers in Oxford Street, London, that selection has ballooned to well over 500 separate makes of shoe, racked up around the walls like the fallout from an exploding prosthetic foot factory.
A brief trawl around my local supermarket reveals, in no particular order, 60 types of toothpaste, 40 vinegars, 50 olive oils, and 30 makes of toilet roll. And that's before you even start getting into the really complex areas of biscuits, cereals and moisturisers. Even Ann Summers now stocks over 30 different types of vibrator.
In a little bit of market research in central London, for instance, six out of the ten people I spoke to said that they were utterly bamboozled by the extent and variety of goods on offer.
"There was just too much choice, so I ended up not making a decision," said 31-year-old teacher Nicole, as she emerged from the King of Trainers shop. "I knew what I wanted when I went in, but then there were so many different possibilities I got confused and gave up."
Nor is it just indecision that excessive choice can engender. "The fact that there is so much choice, and that the choices are so confusing, has been proven to have a negative effect on people's moods," said Schwartz. "Even when you've actually bought something there's still that lingering sense of worry and regret that maybe you didn't choose the right option."
Psychotherapist Liz Irvine goes even further. "There's a really depressive element in having too much choice," she argues. "I see it all the time in my patients. What lies at the heart of many people's problems is that mentally they cannot cope with the number of choices they are being asked to make in the modern world."
More and more people are now making a conscious choice to opt out of making decisions. To call it a consumer revolt would be to overstate the case - no-one, as far as I am aware, has yet set themselves alight in Sainsbury's in protest at the number of pasta sauces on display. There does nonetheless appear to be a growing sense of exasperation that is leading people to limit the number of options with which they allow themselves to be confronted.
Dr James Intriligator, an expert of consumer pyschology at the University of Wales at Bangor, says, "Studies show that when people are overwhelmed with choice, they take refuge in simple behaviour. My sense is that something of a divide is opening up between those who love going though every possible variable on the Starbucks menu and those who think, To helll with it, just give me a cup of coffee."
"When I go out with friends, we always go to the same Thai restaurant," says singing instructor Hannah Mazey, 34. "And I'll always choose the same dish. It means that I can relax and talk to people without worrying about having to make decisions."
Web designer Martin Leeman, 40, feels the same. "I used to be a great one for buying designer clothes," he says. "But the experience became so complicated and time-consuming that now I'll just go into Gap twice a year and buy three pairs of exactly the same jeans, and that's it. It was only when I stopped having to choose that I realised how stressed out the whole thing was making me feel."
"It's a complicated picture," says Jenny Driscoll of Which?. "But, in certain areas, people do seem to be choosing to avoid choice. With supermarkets, for instance, our research shows that 70 per cent of shoppers just want to get through the trip as quickly as possible, and they do that by going straight to the brands they know so as to scale down choice. It's the same with current accounts. There's a huge variety out there, but people are consciously choosing to stick with the big four banks, even though they could get a better deal elsewhere."
An increasing number of businesses seem to be waking up to this "we want less" dynamic. "The sense I get again and again, " says Barry Schwartz, "is that people in business - whether it be selling flowers or appliances or clothing or food - all recognise this problem.
"They're trying to simplify, find ways to organise and display their products so that even if they offer a lot, consumers don't actually feel they're being offered a lot."
Stores such as Tesco Metro and Sainsbury's Local, for example, are - in part at least - a response to the public's desire for a more focussed, less complicated shopping environment, carrying about 10 per cent of the 30,000 products available in full-size supermarkets. Likewise, an increasing number of restaurants are offering limited or set menus.
"Ninety-nine per cent of our customers now go for our set menu," says Samir Mahdi, manager of Souk, a Moroccan restaurant just round the corner from the Ivy. "People just sit down, order their drinks and start eating. It makes the whole experience a hell of a lot more enjoyable and less stressful."
'The Paradox of Choice' by Barry Schwartz is published by HarperCollins, priced £7.99.
WHY WE'RE SPOILT FOR CHOICE
Trainers There are so many types of trainer out there it's enough to make you want to turn around and run away. It's not just the number of different brands on offer - Adidas, Puma, Lacoste, Reebok, Nike, Evisu, K-Swiss, Airmax, G-Unit - but the number of different styles within each brand. With Adidas, for example, you can choose from, among others: Stan Smith, Forest Hills, Trimm-Trab, ZX Runner, ZX 500, ZX 700, X-Comp, Half Shells, Superstar 2, Tuscany, Titan and SL8.
Tuna Once upon a time tinned tuna was... well, tinned tuna. Now, in Sainsbury's alone, you can buy tuna in brine, olive oil, light olive oil, spring water or sunflower oil, not to mention tuna with tikka, lime mayonnaise, light lemon mayonnaise, lime and black pepper, coronation sauce, coronation and diced pineapple sauce, mango chutney or tomato and herb dressing. And that's before you've even started thinking about whether you want your fish "chunked" or "flaked".
Bras The Marks and Spencer range alone includes the underwired, the smooth underwired, the non-padded underwired, the smooth padded balcony, the lightweight smooth padded plunge, the smooth underwired padded plunge, the push-up underwired, the padded plunge with seam-free cups (and sheer straps), the ultrasonic sports bra, the stick-on bra, the T-shirt bra and, of course, the (take a deep breath) ego-boost ultimate cleavage push-up underwired with moulded liquid-filled bra cups.
