Latin America. "Don't look for your next story: let her find you." This is how Netflix announces its new tool, Play Something, an option that allows the platform to choose some content that can "help" the indecision of a paralyzed viewer among so many options.
"We face countless decisions in our daily routine and, after all, the on-demand ecosystem exerts additional pressure: finding something to watch is no longer a relaxing experience, it is a challenge," said Elena Neira, collaborating professor of Information and Communication Sciences Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and author of Streaming Wars: The new television.
"This initiative illustrates the company's obsession with minimizing the time we spend searching aimlessly on the platform, which is known as decision fatigue, which is a big problem for Netflix."
An average citizen faces about 35,000 daily elections, and now one more is added: deciding which program will accompany him during his rest time. "Faced with various options, our brain is evaluating the different options and helps us to choose. In the case of having many options, the analysis task is much more complex. That's when the fatigue of the decision appears," explained Diego Redolar, a neuroscientist and professor of the Studies of Educational Sciences and Psychology at the UOC. Normally, it has a negative implication. "If we have too many options, it is difficult for us to do this analysis, there is a high cognitive load and we end up trying things and we opt for something, but it may not be the most effective decision," adds Redolar.
Fatigue of choice leads to blockage; the blockade, to the flight
"The blocking of choice does not drive consumption, on the contrary; if you're undecided, frustration can take you to another platform," Neira warned. "Faced with the fatigue of the choice, the person can use different strategies: make a list of their favorites to try to reduce the options; be guided by recommendations from experts or outsiders, or directly leave the platform to engage in another activity," added the neuropsychologist.
We look for strategies to combat our anxiety about each new option. That is why, according to Neira, we look for comfort zones such as the series that everyone talks about, the revision of classics, the guarantee of the awards or the prescription of the professionals.
"This fatigue directly affects playback hours, which are the basis of customer loyalty, and that's why Netflix is so worried," says Neira. The analysis of data from hundreds of subscribers has allowed them to establish the critical time of this fatigue, from when the user enters the service until he manages to make a viewing decision: between 60 and 90 seconds, a period of time in which the user "either finds something of interest or the risk of leaving the service increases substantially", says Neira.
The future, infinite programming options
And that's why Netflix tries every way. Historically, it has devoted vast resources to content and technology, paying market-leading salaries to engineers and designers. And it has launched numerous tools, from self-reproducing trailers, popularity rankings, the most viewed, recommendation algorithms, deep tagging or hyper-personalized interfaces to fight against the fatigue of choice. Although, for now, the future of platforms goes through the more, the better, but never less.
"The very structure of subscription-based streaming, which relies on original production to attract new customers, has made excess the norm. For Netflix, more is more, although it seems that for the viewer more is less and less," concluded Neira.
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