Choice Fatigue – how we
suffer
Are you getting set
in your ways? Prefer to stick to the tried and true rather than venture into
the uncertain world of consumer choice?
I have a diagnosis for you,
and it isn’t to do with age or sticking-in-the-mud. What you are more
likely to be suffering from is a condition called Choice Fatigue.
Barry Schwartz, an American
psychologist, has identified the problem that can make shopping a misery. It
is, simply, too much choice.
Take ordinary sliced
bread. My supermarket offers the usual white and wholemeal, big and
small. But while I hesitate, I am also offered organic, batch, farmhouse,
crusty, thick-sliced, medium-sliced, and probably several others that I
can’t remember, before being accosted by ‘fancy’ breads (Italian,
French, German, Irish, with or without olive oil/garlic/walnuts/sun-dried
tomatoes).
It’s the same with clothes,
shoes, make-up, cleaning materials, holidays: loads to choose from, even
though there may not be all that much to choose between them. (This
condition, by the way, afflicts men almost as much as women. Ever tried to
buy men’s socks in M & S?)
On the whole, I like choice,
and I am sad about the way old-fashioned varieties of fruit and vegetables
have been phased out, in order to match the standardised requirements of
large supermarkets.
But choice is stressful, and
as I wander around the shelves trying to find the biscuits I like (which
have probably been discontinued) I feel a certain cynicism when I
encounter the word ‘new’ as in ‘new product’ or ‘new formula’. What’s
wrong with the old one, I think (still seeking my favourite biscuits). Do we
really need yet another air freshener that releases almond blossom scents?
I have other worries about
products. These days I need glasses to shop, as I scrutinise the very small
print for chemical additives and artificial colourings which I would prefer
to avoid. I succomb to buying products grown in far-away places, feeling
guilty about ecology as I do so.
And as if that’s not enough,
there is also the niggling concern that I might be missing out on something,
some new wonder product that really might change my life.
In AdLand, you get a couple
of housewives or teenagers or blokes-in-suits telling each other about some
new essential for modern living. In Real Life, or rather
in real later life, this doesn’t happen, mainly because our contemporaries
are suffering from the same Choice Fatigue as we are.
The only way to be in touch
on new stuff, is to find out from one’s offspring, who are still
comparatively immune to the challenges of multiple choices.
But even then we could be
making a big mistake. We could, you see, be making ourselves vulnerable to
Wrapping Rage, a condition afflicting almost everyone over 50, according to
a survey from Yours magazine. The survey showed that 71 per cent
of respondents had hurt themselves trying to open a package. Many, in
desperation, resorted to scissors, pliers, hammers, screwdrivers, chisels,
wire cutters, secateurs.
Worst to open were tops of
bleach and other ‘child resistant’ bottles (I can vouch personally for a
nasty fight with the bleach lid), jars and cans, anything shrink-wrapped,
ring-pull cans, cartons, clear tops of ready-made meals, CDs.
There is one scrap of
comfort in all this. As we pace those shopping aisles, we can feel a
certain virtue. Women shoppers are said to walk a healthy 133 miles a
year. At last, a good word for that other modern condition – Retail
Therapy.
Talkback is a regular
feature in laterlife.com run by journalist and author Helen Franks. 
