Decision paralysis: Why does it feel so hard to make choices right now?

“This website has convinced me that living alone, living with strangers, living with friends, and living with your parents are the worst things you can do for your mental wellbeing,” reads a viral tweet, speaking to the crippling, internet-induced decision fatigue many of us are experiencing right now. “Gonna join a cult so someone tells me what to do with my life,” one person jokes, while another declares conclusively: “Peak indecision energy.” 

The exchange crystallised a feeling shared by those around me: why does making any decision feel so overwhelming and exhausting right now? Small choices such as what to eat for lunch send my brain into overdrive: Is it protein-rich? A hidden carcinogen? Too UPF-heavy? Clothes shopping elicits the same mental maelstrom: is it fast fashion? Has it been boycotted? Will it end up in a landfill? Friends report their dating lives have stagnated, fearful that moving forward with the wrong person might waste months at a crucial juncture in their lives. The all-inclusive holiday is booming in popularity once again, alluring, with its promise – as one friend described it – “to temporarily relieve our minds, bodies and souls of the never-ending existential dread of deciding what to have for dinner.”

It’s no wonder – our brains are fried. You only have to look at the sheer glut of information and unsolicited opinions available online, influencers peddling their wares with hidden agendas, people telling cautionary tales during their GRWMs. “Hearing multiple sources of information on a particular topic – especially if they seem to take conflicting positions – can make us feel drained, confused and overwhelmed,” says author and psychotherapist Eloise Skinner. 

Adding to the chaos, we’re now outsourcing our decision-making to ChatGPT and community-led platforms such as TikTok and Reddit – something Christine Schneider, clinical psychologist at Cambridge Therapy Centre, is seeing more and more. Oftentimes, it can be a positive tool for people prone to indecision, she says, with AI acting as a “thinking partner” and offering different perspectives that would never usually occur to us. “It can also reduce analysis paralysis by structuring complex problems into more manageable steps,” she adds.

Marcus, 24, uses ChatGPT two or three times a day. He uses it to discover new fashion brands, but also to make decisions such as whether he should eat out or stay in and cook, or what album he should listen to that day. He says: “I constantly think to myself, ‘Why would I wait for the opinion of a busy friend when ChatGPT can give me 95 per cent accurate information and help me decide in seconds?’”

I’ve personally left the fate of my hair to complete strangers on TikTok after soliciting their opinion on my appearance, and sifted through testimonies on Reddit to better inform my advice to friends. In one of my weaker moments, I’m ashamed to say I’ve typed verbatim into ChatGPT, “Should I go for a drink tonight, I want to, but it’s Tuesday” – treating AI not so much as a wise advisor but as a glorified Magic 8 ball. It feels silly but compulsive, like I can’t help it.

Of course, decision fatigue is nothing new. Every literary sad girl (or teen with a Tumblr account in the 2010s) will be well versed in Sylvia Plath’s fig tree analogy, a warning against the pitfalls of chronic indecision. Then there’s the popular monologue in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag: “I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like. What to hate. What to rage about. What to listen to. What to joke about. What not to joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in and who to vote for… I think I’ve been getting it wrong.” 

To clarify, we are incredibly lucky to have agency over our lives and careers – that we can choose what we eat, say, and who to love. But Fleabag’s speech throws into sharp relief that the hardest part of making all your own decisions is that when it goes “wrong”, we cannot sidestep responsibility – we only have ourselves to blame. It’s a lot of pressure. 

Nell*, 32, uses ChatGPT as a “neutral sounding board” for her dating dilemmas. “I’m single and have an anxious attachment style, and it helps me calm down when I’m spiralling,” she says. “It helps me judge whether my messages are funny or flirty enough, and sometimes it straight-up tells me ‘no’ when I ask if I should send follow-up messages. It’s like a friend that helps me make decisions. Whether they’re better or worse than the ones that I would make on my own, who knows.” We’ve all been there. It’s completely normal to scrutinise messages when we’re into someone, or low-key stress that the delivery – too eager, too chill? – could scupper our chances. So what’s the harm with having a little help making the ‘right’ moves?

Hearing multiple sources of information on a particular topic - especially if they seem to take conflicting positions - can make us feel drained, confused and overwhelmed

 Schneider says this is where we need to exercise caution. “Decision-making is not just about information, but about values, emotions, and context, which are all areas that algorithms cannot fully capture,” she says. AI simply cannot predict what another person finds funny or interesting, or know the intricacies of personality and attraction. Furthermore, it has a “tendency to blindly validate,” she says – AKA, feed our delulu. 

If you are someone who struggles making decisions, ChatGPT and “cognitive offloading” – where we hand over mental tasks to external tools such as calculators, sat-navs or now increasingly AI – will further erode this, says Schneider. “In decision-making, this means we risk becoming less confident in our own judgement if we continually rely on technology to weigh options or suggest solutions, rather than engaging with the process ourselves.” In other words, using our brains to make a decision is like a muscle we should keep flexing: we must use it or lose it.

Rather than fret about the actual decision-making, perhaps we need to re-evaluate how we view unfavourable outcomes, urges Skinner. Mistakes are a necessary reminder that we have opportunities to correct and realign our behaviour for the future, she says, which in turn teaches us skills of resilience, flexibility, adaptability and persistence. Schneider also stresses the importance of never handing over the steering wheel entirely; whenever using ChatGPT to support a decision, ask yourself if its suggestion aligns with what matters most to you. “That simple pause can protect against passivity and keep your decision-making muscles active to avoid losing confidence and trust in your own decisions.” 

Making decisions that can alter the course of our lives is an inevitability and privilege we should be wary of outsourcing to AI. It’s all too easy to become detached from the messy but essential human process of grappling with uncertainty, making a judgment call, and going for whatever feels instinctively right. Yes, the reality is, we will make mistakes. Sometimes you will listen to a shit album, cut an unforgiving fringe that takes a year to grow out, or send a risky text that doesn’t land. At the very least, it’s a learning curve, one you might not repeat. And other times? The payoff is better than you could have ever imagined.