The Hindu Business Line : Is channel-surfing sub-optimal?

Sometime back, I decided to watch a movie at home, as my daughter, who normally exerts her individuality when it comes to TV time, was sleeping. I ended up channel-surfing! The realisation that I was surfing channels made me wonder as to why I indulged in such wasteful activity. Behavioural economics throws some light on my irrationality. Here is how.

Behavioural economists have been conducting experiments to observe how we make decisions when presented with choices. They show that we are mostly irrational and sub-optimal in our decision-making. My irrational behaviour to channel-surf can be explained based on these experiments!

Clicking open a door

In one such study, students were asked to play a three-door game. They had to score points by clicking open a door and then clicking on the points which appeared after the door opened. Each student was given 50 clicks. Switching among the three doors was costly because it meant using up one of the allotted 50 clicks to open a door.

Two versions of the experiment were conducted. In one, a door would shrink and disappear if the student did not click on it for sometime. In the other version, the door did not shrink. All students were asked to play both versions of the game.

The study found that people switched more when the door disappeared. The research concluded that people were willing to sacrifice points to avoid the pain of losing an option (door).

Fear of losing options

This shows that we tend to overvalue our choices. The researchers concluded that this tendency is primarily due to the fear of losing choices.

My behaviour to channel-surf is no different. I was, perhaps, surfing to ensure that I did not miss any interesting programmes on the other channels. Indeed, watching TV was uncomplicated when Doordarshan was the only channel!

Behavioural economists may say that channel-surfing is sub-optimal. The fact is that the best programmes on the channels that you prefer viewing often run at the same time on a given day! And what better way to watch them than channel-surf?

(The author is an investment strategist.)

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