Netflix is clearly the solution against boredom! It's hard to find flaws with the platform, except that it takes literally an hour to find a movie to watch. Don’t lie, we know very well that it happens to you all the time! Rest assured, you are not the only one to find yourself in this situation. Moreover, a study conducted by researchers at the California Institute of Technology has determined why it is so difficult to make a choice on Netflix.
Découvrir notre dernier podcast
The brain is lazy!
The researchers unveiled their study in a Science Daily article, called ‘Scientists discover why you can’t decide what to order for lunch.’ Thanks to their research, you can quickly understand why it's such a headache to decide which movie to watch. The reason is simple, there are just too many choices on Netflix. This is called an ‘overabundance of choices,’ that is to say we have a hard time making a decision when we are faced with several choices.
The researchers gave their subjects to 6, 12 or 24 choices, and observed the activity of their brain at this time. They then found that when faced with over 15 options, our brains feel overwhelmed, and must make a lot of effort to make a decision. Colin Camerer, professor of behavioural economics at Caltech, explained:
When we think about the amount of choices we want, we do not think about the frustration that comes with making a decision.
In other words, if you have trouble choosing a movie from the huge Netflix catalogue, it's simply because our brain feels like we're working too hard!
