Since last year, the keyword "zero-thought" (無思考 — literally "no thinking") has been appearing more and more.
Our app Tabery is often described in that context — as "a service that lets you decide your meal plan without thinking." But this is actually quite a large gap from our concept and the message we want to convey.
Do most people truly want to not think? I don't actually believe that.
In the modern world, we're forced to process the constant stream of information pushed at us through smartphones — which we now interact with for over four hours a day. I think the more accurate interpretation is a desire to allocate the limited resource of "thinking capacity" that's being eroded — not to abandon thinking entirely. "People don't want to abdicate decision-making," it seems to me.
What is thinking for in the first place? I think it's to change your own future actions.
I believe "decision-making" shares a common process. From small things like "buying a dessert at the convenience store" to decisions that aren't frequent but take up significant mental bandwidth like "finding a hospital to visit" — I think we pass through the following process, sometimes unconsciously:
- Correctly recognize what needs to be decided
- Gather information
- Evaluate the reliability of that information
- Filter information that might fit you and prioritize it
- Digest the high-priority information and make a decision
Going back and forth between steps 1–4 before ultimately reaching a decision. Within this process, the most important thing being cultivated toward the final decision is what I call "conviction" (納得 — a sense of having genuinely accepted something).
How is conviction formed?
Let me come back briefly to our app Tabery. Tabery started from the idea of "scientizing and supporting the decision-making around meal planning" (the process of shaping that idea is documented in another blog post).
https://yamotty.github.io/post/20171230_day-one/
In Tabery's early development, we started with an MVP in the form of "a week's worth of meal plans presented together as recommendations." But that product didn't resonate at all. Getting thoroughly beaten up in usability testing, I came to deeply understand that "we couldn't achieve product-market fit by skipping the process of forming conviction."
Every decision requires conviction. So when does conviction form? It forms "while comparing and deliberating among specific candidates."
When you want to eat curry out
Just searching for "curry restaurants nearby" doesn't form conviction. And even if someone you don't have a trust relationship with suddenly offers a specific suggestion like "you should go to this curry place," there isn't enough conviction to act on that.
When you understand the reliability of the information. For example, when you get a recommendation from a close friend, or when you've spent sufficient time comparing information. That's when conviction forms.
The role of products "now"
I have the hypothesis that what products are being asked to do now is not "replace decision-making" but rather "support the process of decision-making."
That said, just as humans optimized their brains for information intake from vertical screens after the smartphone appeared and turned us into sideways-eyed creatures, the fact that product penetration causes "human evolution" is one reality.
Someday, perhaps a day will come when products replace all of human decision-making.
