Decision paralysis and the chase for the perfect experience
There are too many choices for everything. Can we ever make a decision without crowdsourcing reviews first?
On the second to last day of our epic 10 day guided bus tour across the Korean Peninsula last Spring, we were left to our own devices to find a place for dinner. It would seem that having a choice for where and what to eat instead of being shuttled into restaurants in accordance to our ridiculously ambitious travel itinerary would have been a welcome change.
But here we were, four middle-aged and senior adults—myself, my mother, my cousin and aunt—wandering aimlessly around the streets of Sokcho for an hour in search of food, caught in decision paralysis because for nine straight days we ate whatever was placed in front of us. I had no idea until then how much I enjoyed not having to decide what to eat everyday!
We enter a fish market. Sokcho is a coastal city known for its seafood on the northeastern coast of Korea. We figured a market would be a good place to start, but the choices proved overwhelming. We leave the market with its endless stalls of fried shrimp and ribbons of fishcakes on a stick and walk over to a street lined with restaurants eager for customers on this rather cold, April weekday. When the menu from place to place looks nearly identical, how do you even choose?
“Let me look up the reviews first.” My cousin gets out her phone and looks up a random restaurant on the street. I do the same.
“Eh, the reviews aren’t stellar. We can do better.” I agree.
We cross the street and peer into the window of another restaurant in search of something—anything!—that’ll draw us in. But after a minute we look on our phones again for reviews. We waffle and circle the block. Our mothers grow impatient and practically shove us towards a restaurant a few doors down, insisting that whatever we choose will be fine.
“Hold on, let’s check the reviews first.”
The irresistible pull of online reviews
How many times have you done something similar? For any purchase that you’ve made?
I recently thought about my own buying habits after spending hours—yes HOURS—on a Saturday night researching a lap desk (why yes, I did seriously consider taking my work-at-home set up to the next level with a lap desk for my bed). I tried to think if I could recall any instance where I bought something online without reading any reviews first.
But I couldn’t.
A pair of jeans? Absolutely not. With vanity sizing so wacky and inconsistent, how will I know if a size 26 really is a 26 or if it’s closer to a 27 or a 25 if I don’t read the collective wisdom gathered from customer reviews? But apparently, store reviews alone aren’t enough to satisfy my voracious need for data and more information. I go searching online to see if there are any additional photos on blogs or Instagram so I can see the jeans on a real person.
What about an LED book light? Nah. I need to know if it will last more than 6 months because how can something that costs 10 dollars be a quality product? I read at least two pages of reviews on Amazon.
Before booking a reservation at a restaurant, I’ll go to Google or Yelp first. I search online for any review I can find on a doctor before making an appointment. Travel planning, unsurprisingly, leads me down a monstrous path of in-depth research involving at least 25 open browser tabs as I comparison shop hotels. I won’t book one until I’ve read at least fifteen reviews from multiple platforms and thumbed through at least 30 traveler-snapped photos.
I do this for almost every purchase all the way down to a $4 cat toy. I mean, if I don’t read the reviews, how am I going to know if our cat’s going to like it?
But here’s the rub. I won’t because reviews are subjective. A 2 star rating for one buyer might be a 5 star rating to another, but psychologically we tend to fall into a herd mentality where we think that a product with the most positive reviews is the best one out there because surely the 23,843 people who’ve left a rating must be on to something that the 42 people who chose a similar but less popular product don’t know. This is the effect of social proof.
I fully acknowledge that my particular method of relentless research-before-you-buy is a bit excessive, but studies shows that 95% of consumers read reviews before a purchase, so I know I’m not alone. And it’s interesting how the mind works. A product with consistent 5 star ratings can raise as much suspicion as one with poor reviews. As aware as we are of how much bias there is towards the most extreme opinions, why have online reviews become so deeply embedded in our purchase journey?
Too many choices
Like most things tied to commerce, I blame Amazon which played a huge part in popularizing online reviews to a critical mass. Yelp also came into existence around 2004 and before that, we had Eopinions during the first dot-com era. Incidentally, this is also when daily emails and blogs, including my own media startup, started to take off; this was the beginning of online recommendations and micro-influencer culture that ended the era of printed guides like Zagat.
Barry Schwartz talks about the idea of too many choices in his book and Ted Talk, The Paradox of Choice. “It produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all.”
Enter reviews, recommendations, and the need to research our options into oblivion, even after getting initial recommendations from friends and family. There are too many choices for everything out there—how do we otherwise make sense of it all? While my level of internet sleuthing has served me well in my quest to collect as much information as possible before proceeding on any course of action (I know way too much about mold, ringworm, and lice), it takes up too much of my time. This is time that I never spent in pre-internet times.
It really all makes me wonder: am I even capable of making a decision without reading reviews anymore?? Does all that time spent crowdsourcing opinions result in a more satisfying purchase?
In pursuit of the perfect product and the perfect experience
If you’ve ever experienced buyers remorse or had to stop yourself from peeking at one more review even after hitting that purchase button, then you might already know that the answer isn’t necessarily yes. The way we shop and make decisions has us chasing after the perfect product and the perfect experiences. Our search habits are optimized towards finding the best of everything:
“The top 10 weekend getaways under 3 hours that won’t break the bank”
“The best kitchen gadgets that you’ll only ever use once”
“The ultimate guide to the best socks under $5”
“The reason that everything was better back when everything was worse is that when everything was worse, it was actually possible for people to have experiences that were a pleasant surprise.” –Barry Schwartz
In our pursuit of the well researched option, we’ve eliminated the element of surprise and the joy of the spontaneous. I’m not sure that the wanderlust days of my youth spent traveling around in a van for months would have been possible in the manner that I did had the internet been around. And I can’t remember what it’s like anymore to go into a restaurant without having some idea of what it might be like from reviews.
Is there any going back? For me, probably not. But I do like the idea of bringing back some of that element of surprise that Schwartz explains we might be missing in modern life. Maybe my newly formed ritual of sketching at a cafe can include a different cafe in the neighborhood each time—without checking the reviews first.
More travel hilarity in Korea
A few things I found interesting this week
‘Welsh Tidy Mouse’ Tidies Tiny Welsh House - I was really captivated by this video of a little mouse organizing items into a box!
A New Startup Is Bringing the Y Combinator Model to the Art World - An accelerator program for the art world? It’s an interesting model.
A Nation of Banchan - Speaking of Korean food, we’ve been watching this Netflix series about the culture of side dishes and the Korean table.
Finding the words to talk about emptiness - How would you describe the feeling of emptiness?
Duolingo Cuts 10% of Contractors as It Uses More AI to Create App Content - We knew this was coming, but how will this affect Duolingo’s already wonky translations?
I love this one. These questions have been on my mind lately, and I’ve started to try to be more spontaneous, if not by choosing cafes and restaurants without checking the reviews (in fact, I did this last night, and that restaurant ended up sucking), at least by choosing food options or books I don’t usually go for, and surrendering to potential serendipity.
Ah yes, in my little family we call this the _insert my father in law's full name_ Syndrome. It once took him over two years to finally buy a car... first it was between two cars, then it was which dealership. Two years... we just prayed that the model wouldn't get an upgrade during that time. 😂😂😂😂