I needed a blender. Simple purchase, right? Except I didn’t want just any blender. I wanted the blender. With so many options available, surely there was a blender out there with features and a price point tailored perfectly to me. So, I watched reviews, read comparisons, and lurked in blender-adjacent subreddits.
Burnt out on blender research, I eventually walked into a nearby big-box store and grabbed a US$30 blender. I figured if it wore out, I could justify replacing it with one of the high-end models I’d been researching.
I ended up not liking smoothies that much, so I still have that same old blender with no plans to upgrade. In this case, I was mostly able to avoid getting caught in the web of endless data and information available at our fingerprints, but the analysis paralysis dilemma is real and many people seem to be having a tougher time making decisions amongst ever-increasing options. Let’s look closer at this dilemma and see if there’s a way out.
Analysis paralysis, overchoice, information overload—behavioral economics ironically offers several terms to describe the phenomenon of having too many choices and too much information. Social psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper popularized the concept with research that found shoppers with more choices for a particular product were actually less satisfied with the one they chose.[1]
Imagine you need a new desk chair. If I offered you three chairs to choose from, you could easily pick your favorite from those three. But if I filled the Mouser warehouse with thousands of chairs, you’d certainly find one you liked, but how confident would you be that it was the best one for you out of all the choices (Figure 1)?
Figure 1: What if the next chair is even more comfortable AND comes in your favorite color? (Source: Alpha/stock.adobe.com; generated with AI)
Obviously, that’s just a thought experiment because I’ve been told I can’t fill the warehouse with chairs, but we can see this phenomenon play out in our everyday choices. Choices of all sizes, from blenders to cars, present us with rabbit holes of research, opinions, reviews, and social validation. For engineers who enjoy optimization, researching a purchase can be fun. But thoroughly researching every decision is exhausting. The internet has undoubtedly given us plenty of information to make informed decisions. But is it too much information?
While the internet gives us lots of substance, there’s also lots of noise (Figure 2). Looking for a blender? Here’s a list of the top 10 blenders of 2024, but you’ll have to click affiliate links to see prices. Each of them is highly reviewed, of course. But are these reviews even real? A perfect five stars is suspicious. Better head to Reddit, where moderation against spam is stronger. But instead of simplifying your decision, online blender enthusiasts scoff at pathetic consumer-grade blenders and insist you need something built for a smoothie shop.
Figure 2: They're fun to watch, but has an unboxing video ever actually swayed your opinion? (Source: ronstik / stock.adobe.com)
More than just a series of tubes, the internet is a series of websites competing for your attention. While it’s nice to feel desired, remember that it’s not always in the internet’s best interest for you to get a quick and clear answer.
Algorithmically organized content presenting everything as the “best choice” makes it harder for us to make quick decisions. We already doubt ourselves when we have too many choices, but now we have too many choices and competing information. With so much information at our fingertips, it feels like we should always be able to make the optimal decision.
But sometimes, the optimal decision is simply just to make one. As the business world increasingly relies on data-driven decisions, it can feel counterintuitive to make gut-driven decisions. There will never be a perfect, objective, iron-clad answer to every decision you face, because your personal experience and needs are unique. This applies to small decisions like blenders and big decisions like jobs and cars. You ultimately will need to weigh what you know and embrace some unknown.
Next time you find yourself wishing your life was a role-playing game where you could quicksave and look up the consequences of every decision, remember that the best way to beat analysis paralysis is to get off the information treadmill and trust yourself.
Sources
[1] https://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/345/345%20Articles/Iyengar%20%26%20Lepper%20(2000).pdf
Matt Campbell is a technical storyteller at Mouser Electronics. While earning his degree in electrical engineering, Matt realized he was better with words than with calculus, so he has spent his career exploring the stories behind cutting-edge technology. Outside the office he enjoys concerts, getting off the grid, collecting old things, and photographing sunsets.