Back in the 90s, there were about 7,000 items in your average supermarket. That’s already a lot of stuff to choose from, but today, that number is as high as 50,000. That’s 50,000 choices, 50,000 yeses or nos — from one trip to the grocery store.
Given there are many more important things than doing our daily shopping, and almost each of them comes with a similarly outsized wealth of options, who wouldn’t feel stressed?
A nifty little concept to capture this anxiety we feel when we have too much freedom is FOMO — fear of missing out.
- Can’t decide which stocks to buy? FOMO.
- Wait till the last minute to pick the best event to go to? FOMO.
- Have a hard time committing to a relationship? FOMO.
In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains how too much choice leads to four conditions that reduce our happiness. And they’re all rooted in FOMO.
1. Analysis Paralysis
It’s easier to pick one out of two meals than one out of 50. With more options, we spend more time analyzing and tend to get stuck. Often, we’ll choose to do nothing at all for a long time, and dragging your heels never feels good.
