Why Is Choosing What To Watch On TV So Hard?

I spent an abnormal amount of time in front of a TV the past few days.  One thing that kept hitting me over and over was that there were too many choices.

I'd sit cruising Netflix or HBO Max for what seemed like an hour and I still wasn't seeing anything I wanted to watch.  Or if I did, I would be saving it for another time in case I fell asleep.  After a while, I'd choose something I've already seen.  That happens to me a lot.  What if I don't like this show?  I just spent an hour choosing and I don't want to do it again, so something I've seen and liked it is.

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I'm chalking it up to choice fatigue.  I don't even know if that's a real thing, but it was real to me.  They talk of app fatigue because there are just so many apps available.  But what about the hundreds of TV shows, movies, and documentaries available on each of those apps?  For me, sometimes it's just too much and I can't choose.

Mine was one of the last generations before cable and satellite TV was available to anyone who could pay for it.  We had 2 channels most of my early childhood, then got a 3rd that would come in a bit fuzzy on a clear day.  When we first moved to town and got cable when I was 14 we had 20-30 channels and we felt like anything was possible.  But in those days, I mostly only watched MTV.  How do we go from almost no choice to too many?

So now, when you hear me talking about how Monday Nights are for The Doctor, you'll know half of it is because I love Doctor Who so dang much, and the other half of it is because I really really do hate choosing what to watch, so Mondays I take that out of the equation.