Daily Blog #5: The Candy Store
Choices. That C word. We have a lot of them these days. The Paradox of Choice — it can truly be paralyzing. What do I do next to forward my career? What article to read… what movie on Netflix/ Amazon / Hulu do we watch… what filter do I use on my friggin’ Instagram post!? (Don’t get me started on all the photo editor apps you’re supposed to use on the photo before you even import it into Instagram?!) The problem with the choice paradox is that with so many options, we feel the pressure to make the BEST one. The choices may be proliferating but our time and resources are not (unless you’re an immortal billionaire). And then, when that Saturday night out was subpar because you just spent $150 on a disappointing dinner, there can be a profound frustration, even anxiety: how could I have wasted this moment, this opportunity for maximum happiness?? Why did I waste those two hours on that random movie when I could be watching something that is AMAZING? (I highly recommend Chasing Coral). Am I crazy here or is this something you also experience?
So there is something to be said for personal curation and algorithmic recommendations. Netflix and Amazon are fairly decent at guessing at what you might like (though I like to keep Amazon on its toes). And as millions of new web pages are added daily, creating new content to be filtered through, getting a more personalized feed in our online ‘verse will be necessary. But doesn’t that take away our choice to change and grow in our preferences? And how do we develop that curation for our own life — when we have so many competing products and experiences vying for our attention?
It’s easy to see a product, a service, a decision (pertaining to a career move) in terms of it’s immediate benefit and ‘fix’. That shirt on sale on some cool website will give me an immediate dopamine fix based on the ‘acquisition’ and the ‘deal’ (I’m so discount savvy AND have new clothes!) But now there are a dozen sale websites that are constantly pitching great deals to me through Google Ads. The web has turned into one never ending Candy Store of products and ideas, far more than we could ever consume in a lifetime, but that never the less make our eyeballs bulge and our mouths salivate. It’s easy to get lost in there, tasting all the delicious candy… but at the end of the day you’re fat with tooth decay.
I’m not saying that this new era of infinite choice and instantaneous access isn’t pretty awesome; if you can think it, you can probably find it and buy it. (I wanted a rattan outdoor bar cart in a certain width for our deck and voila! Found it on Amazon for under $200!) But if we keep acting like kids in a candy store who act impulsively, we’re all going to be faced with an overload of options that are moving us towards further economic and climate instability (finding new cheap labor, destroying resources, polluting transport). So how do we make the best choices not just for ourselves, but for the planet?
I am pretty fascinated by the future of AI and Machine Intellience. I’ll probably be writing about it in future posts. But what if there is a plugin that reveals the company’s choices behind your choice. So for every purchase you make, every flight you book, every article you read, you get context. You can see the carbon footprint, you can see their manufacturing practices, their charity donations, their sustainability. There is an imbedded transparency that you are responsibly for acknowledging. No longer will a pretty storefront, whether online or IRL, be a cover. But as that is a little scifi story in my head, the answer that I am going to have to make work for myself is VALUES. My values in concert with the underlying values of a company behind a product are going to become more important to me as my role as a consumer grows. Because then the ‘satisfaction’ isn’t solely about the end result of the choice (which is often beyond your control), it’s about the values that went into the choice.
I need a sweatshirt. I have 10000 options available to me. But if I value a company that is environmentally friendly and manufactures it’s clothes in North America and will only spend X dollars, then my options are 10. That choice set is infinitely more palatable to deal with.
The Value Filter.
That’s my thought today. Hope it was of some… value to you.
;)
