Seamingly neglegible aspects can have huge influence on our behaviour
2024-04-14
Minding friction to build good habits and stop bad ones has always been an important part of how I and so many others try to optimize our productivity and behaviour. But just recently I have been astonished by its importance again and noticed that sometimes there just is hands-on experience required to make the right decision in terms of friction. So let's have a look...
As many rather rationally thinking individuals do, I usually choose the household products or tech I'm buying based on clear specs listed in their datasheets. And why wouldn't you do that? I provides clear aspects for comparisions and is undeniably specific opposed to the rather vague marketing texts. Heck, even most review can't be trusted anymore, since many of them are just bought or even bot-generated. Well, as it turns out not every decision can be broken down to these raw numbers and the aspects that meet the eye at first.
From my experience, the seemingly better product (according to the specs) can end up working worse for you sometimes, since first and foremost no datasheet ever can tell the whole story and often times the really subjective feeling of using a product is more important than raw capabilities for how well it is perceived and thus actually used in the long run. To make things a little clearer I have two personal examples for you. Let's start with the more tech-related one: I have a rather powerful desktop computer with two gigantic monitors, nice peripherals and a standing desk, but I tend to use my roughly 1/3 slower, thermally bottlenecked laptop way more, because it just feels nicer with its slim and light body and I really like moving between locations to spent more time near my family for example. This behaviour couldn't ever be derived from just looking at the raw specs of these two solutions or making a rational decision ahead of time (which would obviously be to use the desktop due to the clear ergonomic and performance advantages).
And this trend goes quite a bit further, since even slighter differences can lead to making an irrational decision in reality. I have two rain trousers to keep my legs dry when biking in rain, but only use the one without shoe covers, which is objectively inferior because my shoes and socks get wet (some might even say really wet). The one with the shoe cover requires roughly half a minute more time to get into and out of, which isn't mentioned anywhere before you buy it and also not too bad when you think about it, but increases the friction just so much that I don't want to use it. The same goes on for countless more examples (eating bread for breakfast instead of oats because I don't have to wash the bowl then, using the same stinky shirt to exercise over and over again because this way I don't have to do the laundy et cetera), but I really don't want to bother you with more of these terrible stories.
Luckily for us, the concept is always the same: Minor differences in usability and effort to do so, which can't easily be rationalized, have a huge impact on our behaviour and what we actually do or use. This leads to the conclusion that while shopping based on datasheets certainly isn't a bad idea at all to not get totally ripped off, you also always need to look further than just the raw numbers. What aspects aren't mentioned in there? How would you and do others use the product? And how does it feel to use it? Especially, the feeling aspect of this is really unsatisfying to me, but that's what our monkey brains do for us - and probably the reason why Apple has such high sales, since using their products just feels amazing despite their objective shortcomings. The best solution I have come up with so far is to take a physical look at a product before buying it if possible and search web for more personal reviews from people, who actually used it for an extended period of time.
With that said, I am very curious to whether or not some of you have made similar discoveries and how you deal with these issues. As always, feel free to comment down below and have a lovely day...