Am I rational consumer?

While I was reading about placebo effect in our reading Power of Price: Why a 50-Cent Aspirin Can Do What a Penny Aspirin Can’t by Dan Ariely, I wondered several times whether I'm reading the right article. It was not about the new technologies that we’ve been reading and thinking about recently. So, I went back to the syllabus. It said, “Are we rational consumers of technology?”

Am I rational consumer of technology? At that moment, I hesitated to answer. I couldn’t say yes or no. I usually buy or use new technologies by the need. I think everybody does too. Just the question will be whether we rationally buy technologies. I think so, but hmm.. I’m not sure.

I bought a new laptop this year. What affected my decision were weight, price, screen size and the company’s credibility. I really like my laptop, but I’m not sure about the quality after 6 months or one year. If this computer is broken, what should I do? I trust this compan, but the fact that it was cheap makes me a little bit antsy about it.

As the reading goes, it says "...belief and expectations affect how we perceive and interpret sights, tastes, and other sensory phenomena..." I really agreed with this statement. We perceive and interpret things differently by our believes and expectations. I think that’s why people have religions. This article provided the example of “royal touch,” which is belief the pope’s touch will cure your illness. I think those kind of belief goes on even today. When people are sick, they try to do whatever they can as if a drowning man will grab at a straw. People become irrational in that moment as far as somebody's health is concerned.

I find myself fasinating whenever I read about placebo effect, but I was a little bit upset. I understand the doctors and researchers didn’t want to fool the patients around and need to do the experiements, and they would have done it with the patients who are not seriously ill. However, if I was in a patient’s shoe, I would have been mad at the doctors when I realized it was a fake surgery. Because my illness is still there, and I was not cured at the right moment, my illness could have been even worse. Just imagine that the placebo patients thought her illness is gone, but now the doctor says he lied to her and she has to undergo real surgery. I wouldn’t want to be worried about it again. I think this shows my opinion on the last question the author threw at the end of the article, “Should we always test every procedure and carry out placebo experiments?”

When the author discussed about the discounted medicine vs. medicine with original price, I could not agree with the test result. I think people buy cheaper ones as far as it has the same quality. I think regardless of what products I’m buying if it is the same products, the quality will be the same as the ones with the original price. I guess I’ll be wondering why this medicine is cheap, but because I am a poor college student, I prefer to buy products during on sale, or buy cheaper ones.