Too many choices

Many of the blogs this week have been about choice and how limiting our choices really are. However, on the opposite extreme, when presented with too many options, then each individual decision begins to lose its value. This week in my sociology class, Self in Society, we are discussing the internet and reading “On the Internet” by sociologist Hubert Dreyfuss. One of the points that Dreyfuss makes is that people have become “anonymous spectators” due to the enormous amount of information available on the internet. There is no personal engagement online, so people can freely enter and exit websites without consequence. This is most prominently shown by the popular site StumbleUpon in which every time you click stumble you go to a new site. Within the span of an hour one could stumble upon over a hundred different sites without staying fixed on any one. Although these sites may show you things you never knew before, most of the information you learn will not stick with you. In other words, this anonymity and plethora of information is good for experimentation, but it holds no true personal value and thus detracts from passion in interests. So, for StumbleUpon, each additional site that you stumble upon devalues from the previous ones you visited and you usually do not stay on one site for more than 5 minutes nor ever return to a site that you liked. In the book, Dreyfus writes that the internet has created a “postmodern self-a self that has no defining content or continuity but its constantly taking on new roles,” (81). For example, I could go online and sign up for 20 different charity causes, but then never further participate. Therefore, the internet has allowed me to learn that these charities exist, but they do not hold any personal value to me.

This post in conjunction with others begs the question: What is the optimal amount of choices? Is it good that certain decisions we make are largely influenced by society so that the totally free choices we have (if any) have more value to us and we consider more deeply? Choosing classes next semester was relatively easy because there are certain classes I have to take for my major/minor, so it took me less than an hour to decide what I am going to register for. But, for study abroad I am able to travel to any of the three places I am strongly considering. So, the decision has already taken up more time and still requires more. As a result, I may appreciate my decision for study abroad more so than for classes and it may reflect my values and my identity more accurately.