decision

Spotify, for example, has invested heavily in its own curation services — both algorithmic and human — after finding that many of its listeners were baffled by superabundance, burdened by excessive choice and uninterested in charting their own paths through the digital wilderness.

While offering ample choice is regarded as essential by many retailers, this too can prove disempowering when it obliges shoppers to invest an excessive amount of cognitive energy in reaching a decision. It causes them to shift from shopping on subconscious autopilot and compels them to engage in rational, conscious thought processes.

In The Paradox of Choice, the psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that infinite choice – whether of mutual funds, breakfast cereals or lovers – is exhausting to the human psyche and leads to greater dissatisfaction. When presented with too many choices, we are not only stunned, like a kid in the proverbial candy shop, but also less satisfied with th

(The original Latin word for “decide,” decidere, means “to cut off,” as in slicing away alternatives; it’s a close cousin of words like “homicide” and “suicide.”)