Apps for Hamlet
Barry Schwartz gave a great TED talk on the “paradox of choice”: beyond a point, the number of choices is overwhelming to many. Many thought that the problem was the lack of information on the choices. But that wasn’t the issue. After all, isn’t Eugene Wei right when he writes: “The internet has intensified this curse, no one can make a purchase decision without reading a bunch of reviews online, or Googling “what is the best [X]” and trying to sift through a bunch of spammy websites to find some authoritative-sounding article. After all, the internet has democratized information and put it at our fingertips, isn't it our own fault if we don't own the best SLR or printer or kitchen blender, or if we don't go to the best ramen house in Tokyo on our one visit there?” Then again, if all you get is only “raw” information with no recommendations, it creates a new problem; what Dan Ariely calls the “burden of knowledge” : “If a doctor tells you that you have to make a dec...