This week in class we watched a TED Talk by Dan Ariely called “Are we in Control of our Own Decisions?”Every student's goal in class was to find something tragic in the talk and write about it for this blog. However, I didn't really notice anything to be tragic. In fact, I think the main tragedy about this TED Talk is that the students have to find something tragic about it! However, since this is the assignment I’ll discuss a topic Ariely brought up that can be considered tragic.
In the TED Talk Ariely talked about marketing techniques that businesses use to guarantee consumers select certain goods or make goods more appealing. Ariely spoke about when given three choices, the one that seems most obsolete will effects individuals decisions. For example, in a study Ariely asked 100 M.I.T students whether they would have a subscription to the Economist via online for $59, a newspaper for $125, or a combination of newspaper and online subscription for $125. Naturally as consumers, we laugh at the individuals who would prefer the second offer because they gain nothing from it. M.I.T students thinking the same choose the third offer over all others. However, once the second offer was no longer available, the most popular choice became the least popular choice and vice versa. In my opinion, this can loosely be considered a tragedy because it's confirmed that humans don't have control over their actions as much as they think. As individuals, we believe that whatever choice we make is done because WE wanted to rather than someone telling us what to do. It is tragic that business use techniques like the one above to get consumers to spend more money on a “better deal” when in reality the deal wouldn’t be better for an individual.This “better deal” only benefits the business because they would be earning more money.
Despite being frustrated with trying to find something tragic about this TED Talk when it was more informative than tragic. I highly enjoyed the TED Talk by Dan Ariely and would suggest it to anyone! Here's a link to a video actually about tragedy!
In the TED Talk Ariely talked about marketing techniques that businesses use to guarantee consumers select certain goods or make goods more appealing. Ariely spoke about when given three choices, the one that seems most obsolete will effects individuals decisions. For example, in a study Ariely asked 100 M.I.T students whether they would have a subscription to the Economist via online for $59, a newspaper for $125, or a combination of newspaper and online subscription for $125. Naturally as consumers, we laugh at the individuals who would prefer the second offer because they gain nothing from it. M.I.T students thinking the same choose the third offer over all others. However, once the second offer was no longer available, the most popular choice became the least popular choice and vice versa. In my opinion, this can loosely be considered a tragedy because it's confirmed that humans don't have control over their actions as much as they think. As individuals, we believe that whatever choice we make is done because WE wanted to rather than someone telling us what to do. It is tragic that business use techniques like the one above to get consumers to spend more money on a “better deal” when in reality the deal wouldn’t be better for an individual.This “better deal” only benefits the business because they would be earning more money.
Despite being frustrated with trying to find something tragic about this TED Talk when it was more informative than tragic. I highly enjoyed the TED Talk by Dan Ariely and would suggest it to anyone! Here's a link to a video actually about tragedy!