Choices: Lost in the Aisles

Sydney De'Vaughn flips open one of the dozens of cell phones
spread like a hardware buffet across the counters of a Manhattan Cingular
store. "I got my first cell-phone plan on an impulse—I
didn't have a chance to look around," he says. "Now I
know what I want—but do I really know what I want?"

Now, phone customers can take their numbers with
them if they change providers. But is more flexibility really what we
need? Already, choosing phone service involves a bewildering set of
decisions: peak minutes and off-peak; analog or digital service; text
messaging and camera capabilities; an array of colors and vast ring-tone
libraries; recharging equipment and battery types; phones with Web access
and phones that act as walkie-talkies.

All this decision making makes us unhappy, argues Swarthmore
College psychologist Barry Schwartz in his book
The Paradox of Choice. Options overload applies to
everything from picking extracurricular activities for toddlers to buying
jeans. The result: A society of stressed-out and dissatisfied
consumers.

Obviously, having no choices at all can make life unfulfilling. But
Schwartz argues that in the United States, consumer options have
proliferated far beyond the happiness threshold. People faced with too
many alternatives waste time pondering insignificant purchases and then
are apt to second-guess their decisions.

More data doesn't help, either. "The more information
people were given about different brands of beer or cereal, the worse
they did in terms of choosing well," says Jacob Jacoby, a marketing
professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, who
was one of the first to demonstrate that too much choice is a bad
thing.

David Myers, author of
The American Paradox: Spiritual Hunger in an Age of
Plenty, points to a study showing that people are happier with
irrevocable choices. In our minds, a dress with a no-return policy fits
beautifully, while one that could easily be exchanged just doesn't
hang as nicely. In a world full of options and exit plans, each choice is
tinged with the fear that we could have found something better.

People who examine every possibility thoroughly are the unhappiest
of all, says Schwartz. Those who apply the standard of "good
enough" are more content. To cell-phone-plan shoppers, Schwartz
advises, "If you have a techie friend, call him and ask which one
to choose. Will he choose the 'perfect' plan for you? No, but
you won't waste two weeks researching them."