Shopping Is Impossible

For several months, I had been on the hunt for new T-shirts.

I vaguely had a vision of what they should look like: not so different from my current T-shirts, except in some way elevated and, more urgent, free of stains or holes.

Perhaps they could come in interesting colors? Ideally, they would not be made in sweatshops.

There were many, many shirts that seemed to meet these criteria—and with a few clicks, they could be delivered to my doorstep, maybe even by tomorrow.

And still, I had purchased none of them.

The problem is the overabundance of options.

The problem is too much information, or too little information.

The problem is inflation, which has eroded any sense I had of what a T-shirt is supposed to cost.

Yet none of them alone can explain why shopping is sucking up more of my time—and maybe yours too.

“I don’t think people are actually enjoying the shopping process,” Jaehee Jung, a University of Delaware professor who studies the psychology of fashion, told me.

“People spend more time contemplating, and the pre-decision process seems to be taking longer.” Everywhere, someone is selling something: on Instagram and TikTok, over email and via text.

At this point, the boundary between “shopping” and “not shopping” has all but collapsed.

There is now a third state: “a little bit shopping.” Shopping is visiting a store or website on purpose, examining the wares, and either buying or not buying them.

A little bit shopping is the constant thrum of consumer opportunities that lead mostly to more consumer opportunities.