The New Paradox of Choice

I read books, and from a young age, I've learned that the things that are written down in books, are factually correct (at least, when they are non-fiction). However, after reading about 100 non-fiction books, I started to doubt that statement. It didn't have anything to do with a specific book, but I came to the realization that books are written by people, and people don't always tell the truth.

After having progressed in age, and having read more books, I've changed my stance on that. Even though it is hard to do so (Since I had been given the perception that books are factually correct on a young age), I've gotten the realization that books are the interpretation of reality by the writer.

Sometimes this means that the book is factually incorrect (But, I'm assuming no foul play here). But other times, the statements made by the writer were correct in his time, but have now changed. One of those is the Paradox of choice. It's a great book in my opinion, and probably factually correct, but the reality is a little more nuanced.

In short: the book talks about how more variety in the supermarkets are giving us too many options to choose from, thereby causing internal stress, resulting in us not picking anything at all. An example that is usually referred to is the jam selling experiment, where a jam stand with 3 kinds of jam sells more jars than the one with 10 kinds of jam.

It is the reason that Gordon Ramsay always tells restaurant owners to take items off their menu instead of adding them. It’s the reason that most fast food restaurants only 3-4 flavors of milk shakes.

However, these things do not hold up online. Online, the biggest stores have the most options. I don't have definitive proof that it's better, nor can I explain why this is the case, but it might have something to do with the ease of shopping online compared to offline. When sitting comfortably at home, we have the time to check and compare all kinds of products to see which one we like the most. There is no walking back and forth needed to compare products.

Moral of the story: think about things you read, rather than taking them in as facts. Ask difficult questions to the topic of the book, and then answer them. You might know the answers, you might go out and find the answers, or if you don’t, you will at least take a closer look at the facts and how they are stated.

Example:

Conclusion of the Paradox of choice: Less is better

Challenging question: “Then how come the biggest online stores have that many products?”

Sub: Could it be that the book is factually incorrect?

Sub: Could it be that the book is written in a different time, and context has changed?

Sub: Could it be that people have evolved?

New conclusion by you: Less can be better. For example in X. X and X. However, when we have Y, Y and Y, more is actually better.