Article Review #1: I Can't Think

Article Review #1
"I Can't Think" by Sharon Begley


I found this article very interesting and something that truly relevant in our lives. I've noticed in my life that sometimes when I have a lot of information its harder to make up my mind and make a decision, and sometimes I've just chose something to be done. In a world where we are always being told that the more information you have the better you'll be, I found it interesting that the studies from the article say the exact opposite. The study done by Angelika Dimoka was especially interesting  That they have the data that the part of the brain that is responsible for making good decisions basically shuts down when there is too much information being taken in.

As the article continued and talked about the decision making problem patterns I found myself thinking that I've definitely had these problems before. The first one being a 'total failure decide' where when there's too many choices and information that many people tend to just stop participating or making any decisions (Begley, 2011). I find that this happens to me sometimes when I'm shopping online, and there are so many choices for each item that I'll end up buying just randomly or the first item I looked up just to be done, and many times this isn't the best option or best value. I also think that this comes into play with politics and voting. There's so much information and a lot of it contradicting that it seems easier to just not vote in the face of all information and choice. Then there was the pattern of 'many diminishing returns' where you feel like you've made the wrong choice the more information you gather. This is another pattern that I know that I've dealt with after making any big choices in my life. After that they talk about the pattern of 'regency trumps quality', where new information is more important then potentially more important or more interesting data. Finally the last pattern was the 'neglected unconscious' where people don't take time to just sit back and think about information and choices, or they don't let their minds have time to think about the information so they don't have the opportunity to make connections to other previous knowledge or find patterns.

Overall I thought this was a though provoking article. In a world where there is so much technology and so any different ways to gather information or opinions about really anything it is quite overwhelming. It sometimes doesn't even seem worth it to read or try to find more information on certain things because of the sheer volume of it available  This makes me think of amazon product reviews, if you are considering a product you want to know how other people felt to see if it is worth purchasing  But once you get to those reviews, they are so varied in responses, some people saying its amazing and other's saying its not worth your money. And you have no way of knowing which side of the group you'll be in, the side that loved it or the side that hated it, and there's no way to evaluate all that information. Though this is an example that isn't exactly high stakes like the article talks about, for me it helps connect the main ideas to my previous knowledge and experience. When thinking of the decisions that the article does talk about it makes me nervous, knowing that these problems arise most often when the decisions are important and the stakes are high. When you are in that situation and need to make decisions, its unfortunate that those are going to be the hardest decisions to make, or one's that you are likely to make poor decisions about.  I've always known that making choices is difficult but now I have information on why that is and practical ways to help myself make better choices/decisions in the future.