The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less, a nonfiction book, by American author Barry Schwartz. In the book, Schwartz argues that eliminating consumer choices can greatly reduce problems for those who don’t shop often. My questions about the book when I chose it were in the following order: 1. Why choose to write a book on subject matter like this? 2. What was the need to write this book? 3. Why is there no sequel to this book? I chose this book to find out more about the problems of having too much freedom to choose in life. Barry Schwartz clearly divides his book into four parts and I will explain each section as i go along.
Part 1 discusses how the range of choices people all over the world face every day has grown in recent years. The United
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It questions whether increased opportunities for choice actually will make people happy, and comes to the conclusion that they do not. Modern America doesn’t seem to be reaping any benefit from the amount of choice that is available to them. In order to know why we are suffering, we need to know what will make us happy.A few people could guess that having money makes us happy, but if that is true, how do we explain gains in wealth, but decrease in our happiness? Researchers have found that it is our close social relationships that truly make us happy. Those who are married, who have great friends, and who are close and have good relations with their families are happier than those who are not. We are paying for increased affluence and increased freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of social relations. Making a social connection takes time. People want the unique closeness, not just the acquaintanceship. These relationships take time to develop and once established, take a significant amount of time to keep steady. A major contributor to this time burden is the vastly greater number of choices we find ourselves preparing for, making, reevaluating and as well as