OBSERVATIONS: Overwhelming Choice, Part II

This is a continuation of yesterday's post. Click here for Part I.

We take for granted that the iPod is a music player. Its value proposition is more as a music storer. A music recaller. Again, the critical moment in the iPod scenario is in the selection of a song, as opposed to the moment of listening to it - the actual playback of the song more like contrails fading behind an overwhelming choice. Here is the official press release for the Fourth Generation iPod. Not once does it extol the quality of the sound (listening). What are instead promoted are the ‘Click Wheel’ and five push buttons, and, of course, the storage capacity (selecting).

Granting that the value of the iPod lies in its ability to store and recall songs one-handedly, the iPod is only valuable when it is useful in these terms, that is, when it permits the user to listen to a song that suits his mood at the instant it suits him, wherever it suits him. Like the example of the barren bookshelves in Observations: The iPod in Consumer Culture, the iPod is validated, that is, made useful, by continually uploading new songs to it, as this seems the only recourse in the face of overwhelming choice.

Whether these psychological devices are ‘built into’ the iPod is somewhat inconsequential. We cannot deny, however, that the iPod is designed as a choice machine. Early psychological studies of choice suggest that the presence of alternatives increases the consumer’s motivation and sense of control. But, consumers are actually more driven by the knowledge that alternatives exist than by having to make a choice among them. The study by Iyengar and Lepper alluded to above concludes ‘that extensive-choice contexts may be more appealing, but are subsequently more likely to hamper people’s intrinsic motivation.’*

*Iyengar, Sheena S. & Lepper, Mark. "When Choice is Demotivating: Can One Desire Too Much of a Good Thing?" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: 79, 995-1006, 2000.