Whilst away on holiday, I read an article in The Times. It was about the difficulty we have making decisions, because we have too many choices. It says the average supermarket has about 10,000 different products on its shelves.
I remember when we went down to our local shop, run by Mr. Griffiths, for our groceries. You couldn't fit more than about 6 people in the shop, yet we managed to buy most of what we needed. AND he served you! Do you remember those days? He had a marble counter and he wrote on it the price of each item you bought on the counter with a pencil, then he added them all up. Do you remember those days when people things added up?
But back to today. If you shop online at Tesco's and search for 'cereals', you get back 346 items. It used to be just Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Weetabix or Shredded Wheat. And Mr. Griffiths stocked them all!
So there's the problem, we have so much choice these days, it makes us more indecisive. The article tells of the jam experiment, where, apparently, people bought ten times less jam when presented with 24 varieties than when their choice was six! But even six seems about three too many!
But back to the article again. They reported on various surveys and we are a "nation crippled by too much choice". In fact, in one study a third of people described themselves as "very indecisive". But what I want to know is, How did they manage to come to that decision?
I remember when we went down to our local shop, run by Mr. Griffiths, for our groceries. You couldn't fit more than about 6 people in the shop, yet we managed to buy most of what we needed. AND he served you! Do you remember those days? He had a marble counter and he wrote on it the price of each item you bought on the counter with a pencil, then he added them all up. Do you remember those days when people things added up?
But back to today. If you shop online at Tesco's and search for 'cereals', you get back 346 items. It used to be just Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Weetabix or Shredded Wheat. And Mr. Griffiths stocked them all!So there's the problem, we have so much choice these days, it makes us more indecisive. The article tells of the jam experiment, where, apparently, people bought ten times less jam when presented with 24 varieties than when their choice was six! But even six seems about three too many!
But back to the article again. They reported on various surveys and we are a "nation crippled by too much choice". In fact, in one study a third of people described themselves as "very indecisive". But what I want to know is, How did they manage to come to that decision?
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