Abundance of choice leaves us wanting for more

THERE’S no such thing as too much choice ... or is there?

If you are old enough to remember life before internet connectivity, you probably recall evening routines going something like this.

Television broadcasts started at 5pm with children’s programs, the news went on at 8pm and adult shows played once kids had gone to bed.

I remember watching American sitcoms like The Golden Girls and Full House. In those programs, households had something called cable television.

As a child, I wanted to visit America, stay in a hotel and watch TV shows on all the different channels.

In South Africa, we had one channel and it only ‘switched on’ at 5pm.

Fast forward to 2024 and there are literally hundreds of channels available to us.

Yet there we sit, remotes in hand and say, ‘there’s nothing to watch’.

I have Foxtel, Prime Video, Stan, Disney plus, Netflix and Paramount pay to view channels at my fingertips.

Then there’s YouTube and its smorgasbord of literally anything and everything.

Still, ‘nothing good is on’ and I fade in and out of shows that fail to hold my attention within the first minute.

I’ve become fickle.

We all have.

I spend around $150 a month on different streaming channels.

That’s an extra $150 I wouldn’t be spending back in the 90s and early 2000s.

I interviewed an English farmer, two years ago.

I asked if the cost-of-living crisis and price of food was as concerning to the British as it was to Australians.

His perspective has stuck with me ever since.

He said 20 years ago, people spent their wage on housing, education, food and transport.

Nowadays, people pay for all that plus a plethora of streaming channels, then complain money doesn’t go as far as it used to.

It’s not just television shows fighting for our attention, it’s the same with human beings.

Literally the same.

Take the dating app Tinder for example, the choice factor there is ridiculous.

My three sons are in their mid to late 20s.

They say there is so much choice, people have become flaky.

Something and someone better is always on the horizon.

Swipe left, swipe right - it’s a production line.

Tinder isn’t the only dating app, there are a multitude of them.

Many singles have profiles across them all.

Like streaming services, we are happy to pay to have as many prospects as possible.

You pay for premium access to dating apps and complain ‘money doesn’t go as far as it used to’.

Doh!

We live in the age of instant gratification.

Feel like a hamburger meal?

Get it delivered to you within 15 minutes through Uber Eats or Deliveroo.

Want that new handbag and pair of jeans?

Use Afterpay to get it now and pay it off over four weeks.

Got a big weekend planned but only get paid the week after?

Get a payday loan.

There are even apps where you can order booze and have it delivered to you if you’ve been drinking and can’t drive to the bottle-o.

It’s no wonder we can’t settle on who we’d like to spend our lives with.

Too much choice is slowing us down and we are stagnating.

People are holding off making important decisions because better options seem ‘just around the corner’.

The Internet and modern-day technology comes with a price.

In ancient Greek mythology, coins were placed on the eyes of the deceased or under their tongue so they could pay the toll to cross from this world into the next.

We all pay the ferryman at some point, but it seems many will still be deciding on the destination when the last ship has sailed.