RS 4: Would You Let a Coin Toss Decide Your Future? A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast

This blog post is my take on the podcast “Would You Let a Coin Toss Decide Your Future?” This podcast appeared on the Freakonomics Radio Podcast website January 31, 2013.

            I found this article extremely interesting and agree with many points of the experiment. It is very true that many people, including myself, can be very indecisive at times. Whether we are making decisions on the margin of something really big or simply what to have for dinner it seems we can never make the “right” decision. This is because when it comes to decisions they really impact our life. Choosing one thing from another will make our lives different in a certain way. However, the very important decisions are the ones people often cannot decide and wastes precious time you have where you could being doing other things, or opportunity cost. We are afraid to make these decisions because the important ones will impact our lives greatly for the better or for the worse; us as individuals don’t want to feel regret knowing that we made the wrong decision or what could have been.

I think this experiment is a great idea and will really help people in their decision making. I for one often use a coin for small decisions nothing to serious, but for big decisions I am the hesitant ones. I feel that this experiment is great because it does not have just a coin to flip, you must answer questions that will really make you think out your decision and situation for example, if you were thinking of leaving a job. These questions are very thought provoking and then if you are still not sure, then you are able to flip a coin. I think it’s great because of the thought provoking questions so people really learn whether they can figure it out on their own or not.

I personally would not put my future on the flip of the coin. Although the podcasts talks about how people really are hurt by the indecisiveness and time wasted thinking out these decisions I would not use this for a really life changing decision. There can be a lot learned from this experiment and those who can never make a decision by themselves will feel great about it and as the experimenter Steven Dubner explains people don’t want to feel regret and knowing you didn’t make the decision makes people feel less regret about not choosing their other option. This experiment page has everything from “should I get a tattoo?” to “Should I quit my job?”. If people really use this and it helps them in making decisions than I think that this is a great tool. However, relating to efficiency this isn’t the most efficient way to go about doing things, but these thought provoking questions make you think about if what you are considering is a smart decision and something you really want to do.