A Harvard researcher with too much time on his hands found that contestants on The Price is Right have been getting worse at guessing prices over the decades. Oldies fans will lament this trend as another sign of apocalyptic change, like Drew Carey taking over for Bob Barker. But there are more mundane explanations.
To begin with, I have to wonder why Jonathan Hartley (the Harvard researcher) decided to spend time on this, uh, interesting project. The linked story says he's a "longtime fan" of the show, and that may be the only real justification. Jonathan looked at contestant's row bids and found that "the accuracy of people's guesses sharply decreased from the 1970s to the 2000s, and then stabilized in the 2010s."
You might ask, why did this happen? Or you might say, who in hades cares? No matter what your reaction, Mr. Hartley suggests three possible explanations for the trend. First, inflation was worse several decades ago, which made people more aware of prices. Second, the rise of e-commerce has made prices more uniform, so people don't pay as much attention to them. Third, there are more products than ever and people can't keep track of all their prices.
It's nice to know that Harvard is analyzing this cosmically important trend. With their $40.9 billion endowment, the university can afford to study The Price is Right...or anything else they want to study.
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