Too Much Information: Understanding What You Don't Want to Know

by Cass R. Sunstein

Overview

How information can make us happy or miserable, and why we sometimes avoid it and sometimes seek it out.

How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought on our way into the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? Can we do anything useful with next week's weather forecast for Paris if we are not in Paris? In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Policymakers emphasize “the right to know,” but Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing that the focus should be on human well-being and what information contributes to it. Government should require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information not because of a general “right to know” but when the information in question would significantly improve people's lives.

Sunstein argues that the information on warnings and mandatory labels is often confusing or irrelevant, yielding no benefit. He finds that people avoid information if they think it will make them sad (and seek information they think will make them happy). Our information avoidance and information seeking is notably heterogeneous—some of us do want to know the popcorn calorie count, others do not. Of course, says Sunstein, we are better off with stop signs, warnings on prescriptions drugs, and reminders about payment due dates. But sometimes less is more. What we need is more clarity about what information is actually doing or achieving.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262044165
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	09/01/2020
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	1,163,036
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Cass R. Sunstein, Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. He was the recipient of the 2018 Holberg Prize, one of the largest annual international research prizes awarded to scholars who have made outstanding contributions to research in the arts and humanities, social science, law, or theology. He is the author of The Cost-Benefit Revolution, How Change Happens (both published by the MIT Press), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler), and other books.

Read an Excerpt

You might not much care to learn the number of hairs on the heads of people sitting at the next table at a restaurant, or the precise metals that were used to make your automobile, or whether the coffee beans at the local store came from Brazil, Colombia, Budapest, or somewhere else. You might not want to know whether you will get Alzheimer’s disease, whether you have a genetic susceptibility to cancer and heart disease, what all of your colleagues really think about you, and the year of your likely death. You might not want to know about the health risks associated with consumption of beer, coffee, pizza, and ice cream—products that offer immediate pleasure but may create future harm. If your mind is full of those risks, consumption might produce fear, guilt, or shame. Ignorance might be bliss. (This very morning, I weighed myself. Doing that was not good for my mood.)
The general phenomenon of “information avoidance” suggests that people often prefer not to know and will actually take active steps to avoid information. But what steps? And at what cost? I have said that the most fundamental question is whether receiving information increases people’s well-being. That proposition argues in favor of a case-by-case approach, asking whether information would have that effect for the relevant population (even if it is a population of just one). True, we have to say something about the meaning of well-being. Economists like to work with the idea of willingness to pay (WTP), insisting that it is the best measure we have of whether people will gain or lose from obtaining things—clothing, food, sporting goods, laptops, automobiles, or information.
I will have a fair bit to say about the willingness to pay criterion, much of it negative. What matters is human well-being, not willingness to pay. An obvious problem is that if people lack money, they will not be willing to pay much for that reason. But let’s bracket that point and work with willingness to pay for now, seeing it as a way of testing whether people really do want something and how much. One of its advantages is that at least in principle, it should capture everything that human beings care about—everything that matters to them. In some cases, people are willing to pay a lot for information. In other cases, people are willing to pay exactly nothing for information. In other cases, they are willing to pay not to receive information.
As we shall see, it is important to ask whether people’s willingness to pay, or not, is informed and rational. Crucially, people might lack the information to decide how much they are willing to pay for information. If so, their willingness to pay might depend on an absence of information about the importance of that information. People’s willingness to pay might also depend on deprivation and injustice, leading them to lack interest in information that could greatly improve their lives.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1
1 Knowledge Is Power, but Ignorance Is Bliss 11
2 Measuring Welfare 39
3 Psychology 79
with George Loewenstein and Russell Golman
4 Learning the Wrong Thing 109
with Oren Bar-Gill and David Schkade
5 Moral Wrongs 119
with Eric Posner
6 Valuing Facebook 135
7 Sludge 153
Epilogue 187
Acknowledgments 193
Notes 195
Index 227

Editorial Reviews

05/25/2020

Harvard Law School professor Sunstein (Conformity) considers the legal, social, and psychological implications of government-mandated information disclosures in this nuanced account. Contending that nutrition labels, restaurant menu calorie counts, credit card bill late fees, and other mandated disclosures should be evaluated on whether they “increase human well-being,” rather than simply provided as part of the public’s “right to know,” Sunstein parses the “hedonic value,” or pleasure, people take in knowing—or not knowing—something, and the “instrumental value” people assign to information based on how they can use it. He compiles data on consumers’ “willingness to pay” for tire safety rankings and the potential side effects of pain medication; contends that the positive and negative feelings associated with such disclosures should be given more weight than they currently are; and outlines potential benefits and limitations to a system of “personalized disclosure,”in which the government mandates certain basic information, but makes further details available to those who want it through apps and other technologies. Readers with a background in the social sciences and moral philosophy will have an easier time engaging than generalists, though Sunstein writes in clear, accessible language throughout. This balanced and well-informed take illuminates an obscure but significant corner of government policy making. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

The book actually delivers something stranger and more interesting than the announced thesis: a tour of human biases that end up creating 'behavioral market failures.' Too Much Information doesn’t replace that generational certainty with a new one, but it does make it impossible to continue regarding information disclosure as an uncomplicated good.”
 – New York Times Book Review

"Sunstein's book is an invaluable font of information about the many burdens of disclosing too much information."
–Reason

"An accessible treatise on the need to ensure that information improves citizens’ wellbeing with a narrative [that] is clear and relatable."
– Kirkus Reviews

“Sunstein writes in clear, accessible language throughout. This balanced and well-informed take illuminates an obscure but significant corner of government policy making.”
–Publishers Weekly

“Anyone who’s ever tried to read Apple’s Terms & Conditions contract knows what this Harvard Law prof is talking about as he weighs the legal and psychological implications, as well as the benefits and drawbacks, of information disclosure.”
–The Globe & Mail

"Classic Cass Sunstein: Keen insights and bracingly clear prose fill every page. The chapter on Facebook alone is a compelling reason to read Too Much Information."
– Robert H. Frank, H. J. Louis Professor of Management and Professor of Economics, Cornell Johnson Graduate School of Management; author of Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work

"Once again Cass Sunstein shows that evaluating policy questions with evidence and rigor not only leads to better governance but can be intellectually exhilarating."
– Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University; author of Enlightenment Now

"Years at the White House uniquely prepared Cass — a worldrenowned behavioral scientist — to write this important book. His mustread arguments about when governments should and should not require companies to disclose information draw on entertaining anecdotes supported by rigorous research."
– Katy Milkman, Professor, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania; host of the Choiceology podcast

"Cass Sunstein offers a unique and incredibly valuable perspective on information and how it affects people’s choices, presented in a masterful way."
– Linda Thunstrom, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Wyoming

"Sunstein offers an endless supply of thoughtprovoking and accessible examples to highlight the fascinating questions at the heart of information disclosure policy. This book changed how I think about what information to seek out in my own life."
– Jacob Goldin, Associate Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

From the Publisher

2020-06-13
A former presidential adviser considers the complexities of information disclosure.

Sunstein, a legal scholar who, in the Obama White House, oversaw federal regulations that required disclosure about such matters as nutrition and workplace safety, opens his latest book by asking, “When should government require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information?” His short answer: whenever doing so makes people happier or helps them make decisions. But as he notes, “Whether it’s right to disclose bad news depends on the people and the situation. One size does not fit all.” In these essays, Sunstein addresses key questions policymakers should consider when deciding whether to disclose or request information. Topics include the reasons people might or might not want information (a friend joked that he “ruined popcorn” after the FDA finalized a regulation that movie theaters and restaurants had to disclose caloric content); the psychological factors to consider when designing disclosures, such as that some people don’t read them, especially when, as with software downloads, they’re long; and the value people place on social media, an essay in which he notes a paradox: “the use of Facebook makes people, on average, a bit less happy—more likely to be depressed, more likely to be anxious, less satisfied with their lives,” yet many people “would demand a lot of money to give it up.” Despite the use of jargon such as “hedonic loss” and “availability heuristics,” the narrative is clear and relatable. Sunstein even delivers a few zingers, as when he notes in the chapter on “sludge,” the term for the excessive paperwork people wade through to cancel magazine subscriptions or sign up for free school meals: “The Department of the Treasury, and the IRS in particular, win Olympic gold for sludge production.”

An accessible treatise on the need to ensure that information improves citizens’ well-being.

Kirkus Reviews