I admit, I’m the person who reads the reviews. I select ‘4 stars or greater’ on Amazon.

And I think it’s a terrible habit I need to break.

Why?

Because it’s paralyzing. Because it leads to excuses not to buy something I probably would have liked. Because there is always going to be someone who has a bad experience with something, and the people who have a bad experience are more likely to talk about it than those who have a neutral or positive experience.

There’s a bias in rating systems that inherently scales things downwards.

Think about it. How many times have you shopped at a store? Just pick one. It could be anything, a clothing store, a department store, a grocery store. Think about all the times that you told someone about your experience there.

How often was it a positive experience? How often was it a negative experience?

I’m far more likely to tell others about my negative experiences. I might have shopped in that store a hundred times and found it to be neutral or good, and never ever told anyone about it. But if suddenly an employee is incredibly rude, or the store denies my return, or whatever, I’m far more likely to talk about it.

The same happens with books. Sure, there’s lots of people who love telling the world about positive things they’ve found. Plenty who just like discussing books in general, good, bad, or the ugly, and that’s awesome!

But there’s plenty of people who will only talk about something if it was negative – or if they had a strong positive or negative reaction to it. That’s why you tend to see a lot of 1/10 and 10/10 for entertainment. The middle area – the area that most experiences will fall into – tend to be underrepresented because people felt neutral or good toward something, but they didn’t feel so strongly about something.

And I’ve been noticing more and more that it’s been preventing me from buying things that I’d really like. Doesn’t matter what it is – clothing, housewares, books – I read the reviews until I’m convinced not to buy anything at all, and I just end up getting stressed and annoyed that I can’t find that perfect shelf that has only 5 stars from dozens of people. Or there’s no shoe out there that doesn’t have any complaints.

There’s something strangely freeing about buying something that you don’t know other people’s thoughts on, or watching a movie that you haven’t heard anything about, or picking up a book that you can’t see a star rating in front of.

No two people are the same, and no two experiences are the same. I’m limiting myself by using ratings, and I’m going to try to take chances. Take risks on things. Try things out and if they fail me, then I’ll find something new.

It’s far too limiting and stressful putting all my decision making in the hands of ratings.