Information, Decision-Making, and the Future of Technology

It is said that the average person encounters more information in one day than most people did for their entire lifetime during the middle ages.

But what is the point of all of this information? Some argue that it is so we can make better choices – when you have more information, you will make a more informed decision.

This is true, up to a point. When choosing what movie you want to see out of the five that are playing at your local theatre, you may want to know the genre, the cast, and the running time; and you may even want to watch a couple trailers.

But when you are on Netflix, Amazon, or another streaming service, and you literally have thousands of movies to choose from, do you really want to know every minute detail of each film? You could spend your entire night analyzing all of the information and choosing the exactly correct movie.

Research has shown that people are less happy when they have more decisions, because they often experience regret and second guess themselves. When one has less choices, they are more likely to be happy with the option they chose.

The next wave of technology and mobile apps will be defined by a set of features that takes in more information from the environment and gives a very tailored suggestion to the user. Here are a few examples:

Restaurant Recommendations: Your app won’t give you a list of 20 restaurants in the area to search through, which you then have to sort by rating, price, and location; rather, it will know your fluid preferences based on context clues of what day and time it is, who you are with, when was the last time you ate and what did you eat, (via readings on your smart watch or smart plate), and how hungry you are based on calories consumed and used. It will then give you one restaurant recommendation, and give you audible information on how to get there.

Content streaming services: Your streaming service will have a full record of everything you have watched, and what your favorite movies and TV shows are. It will know what actors and directors you like, what length of movie you want to watch, the genre you like, and who you are with and all of their preferences, and then suggest one or two movies.

News / Current Events: Your browser or phone will record everything you click on, and also, how long you stayed on the page. It will know your preferences very well and will tailor a newsfeed that will have just a few items that will be exactly what you will want to read. You will no longer have to read newspapers that are engineered to attract the broadest range of people possible. It will be as if every day you are reading a magazine that is written directly to you.

As big data takes off, the algorithms get smarter and smarter, salient metrics are identified, and apps begin to talk to each other, your devices will really know you in a very personal way and will be able to deliver the content that you want, when you want it, without you having to input anything.

I think that more and more apps will start to bend towards this model over the next few years.