HUNTER: Choice overload

Will you choose to read this column? That’s just one of the many decisions you have to make today.

Not too long ago I found an article that discusses what the author refers to as “decision fatigue.” It explains that our mind expends energy each time we’re presented with a choice. Our brain, just like any other muscle in our body, can only resist for so long before it becomes exhausted. Once it has reached this fatigued state, it resorts to making choices that consume the least energy. In other words, it goes for the easy way out and begins to choose the short-term, instinctive pleasures. If you’re on a diet, for example, it becomes harder to resist the urge to give in to delicious chocolate cookies. Likewise, if you’re trying to convince someone, make sure that you do so in the evening, for they are most likely to give in without a fight (even if they have a bit more of an attitude).

You can tell you’re suffering from decision fatigue if you’re exhausted after having gone through a long day full of overwhelming choices. For me, this happens on a daily basis. I’m certainly not alone on this, especially within the BU community. We’re forced to choose from so many options that if they physically manifested themselves in the size of golf balls I’m sure we could fill up the whole Sahara Desert and rename it the Do-They-Really-Expect-Me-To-Choose-Just-One Desert.

Let’s begin with academic choices. What classes would you like to take? When? I can only imagine the look I had on my face when I signed up for courses in orientation. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I kept clicking that ‘next’ button, seeing page upon page of courses covering all sorts of topics, some of which I didn’t even know existed. I kept on clicking, but that little ‘next’ button was still there, teasing me with another whole page of courses. I could almost hear the thing mocking me. “Hah! I dare you to get to the end of this list! And then choose just one class! You have five minutes!”

Then there are choices of where you want to live, with whom, what meal plan you want…the list goes on. Then you run into the smaller but still tiring daily choices: what time you’re going to wake up, what you’re going to eat and where…

I probably have a bit of the confused-freshman bias, but that just means that, unlike others, I’m not used to all this decision-making yet.

Overwhelming as they can be, it’s interesting to see how people accept these plentiful options as something normal, and will even complain when there’s a lack of them. It seems that we’ve grown to become a picky community over the years.

We also have many more choices nowadays thanks to the development of new technologies. Choices like whether we want a netbook or an iPad didn’t exist until recently. Then there’s the Internet, a whole virtual world waiting for you to explore everything it has to offer – Google (and its infinite search results) and Youtube (and its arsenal of homemade videos) amongst others. And don’t even get me started on Facebook- suddenly time seems to disappear! Thinking about it has exhausted my brainpower for the day!

How we all manage to cope with so many choices on a daily basis baffles me. Still, the truth remains: I love having all these choices. Don’t you?

Michelle Hunter is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at mhunterg@bu.edu