For several months, I had been on the hunt for new T-shirts. I vaguely had a vision of what they should look like: not so different from my current T-shirts, except in some way elevated and, more urgent, free of stains or holes. Perhaps they could come in interesting colors? Ideally, they would not be made in sweatshops. There were many, many shirts that seemed to meet this criteria—and with a few clicks, they could be delivered to my doorstep, maybe even by tomorrow. And still, I had purchased none of them.The problem is the overabundance of options. The problem is too much information, or too little information. The problem is inflation, which has eroded any sense I had of what a T-shirt is supposed to cost. Yet none of them alone can explain why shopping is sucking up more of my time—and maybe yours too.“I don’t think people are actually enjoying the shopping process,” Jaehee Jung, a University of Delaware professor who studies the psychology of fashion, told me. “People spend more time contemplating, and the pre-decision process seems to be taking longer.”Everywhere, someone is selling something: on Instagram and TikTok, over email and via text. At this point, the boundary between “shopping” and “not shopping” has all but collapsed. There is now a third state: “a little bit shopping.” Shopping is visiting a store or website on purpose, examining the wares, and either buying or not buying them. A little bit shopping is the constant thrum of consumer opportunities that lead mostly to more consumer opportunities. It is looking at a pair of shoes, which leads to looking at another pair of shoes, and another, and then you’re $15 short of the minimum for free shipping and is there anything else you need? It is the feeling of being haunted by the targeted ads that populate your social-media feeds. Even if you never click on them, their very presence contributes to the overwhelming sense that the retail landscape is infinite—so infinite that perfection must exist, and if you look long enough and hard enough, somewhere in the universe, it is probably on sale.Read: There is too much stuffIn small doses, a little bit shopping can be fun, a private thrill. It is both a genuine attempt at making a purchase, and a hobby that is infinitely expandable to fill any length of time. Who among us has not scrolled through sweater sales while trapped on a work call? It does not require spending money, nor does it apply to urgent and essential purchases: You don’t a little bit shop for baby Tylenol. “No matter what you’re doing on the computer,” Wendy Woloson, a material historian at Rutgers University at Camden, told me, “it seems like there’s a really easy drift into the shopping mode.”Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, the internet never closes. You can a little bit shop forever, until you are also a little bit miserable. Shopping in person, then, ought to solve the problem, but it often doesn’t. A survey of 30 retailers by the consulting firm AlixPartners found that, on average, they carried only 9 percent of their online offerings in store. The shoes are out of stock in your size, but have you checked the website? You could stand in line to buy lesser, uglier shoes and be done with it, but why? Online, beautiful shoes are infinite and, in theory, instant.The more mindful you are about various concerns—overconsumption, worker exploitation, microplastics—the higher the bar climbs: I need not only black pants, but ethical black pants that I can wear to the beach, but also to the opera, and that will be flattering from now until my death. No such pants exist, which is why I don’t have any, but as long as you’re a little bit shopping, the possibility exists.This state of perpetual shopping has been building for ages. People were a little bit shopping on Amazon and eBay in 2005. But the feeling has become even more acute in recent years as e-commerce has taken over and affiliate marketing has boomed. In addition to sites such as Wirecutter and The Strategist, and every media property with a gift guide, all kinds of influencers have opinions about what you should buy (and may receive a commission if you do).Read: What happened to Wirecutter?My own digital social life is a mix of people I know, people I don’t know, brands that post like people, and people launching brands. Here is my high-school lab partner’s baby. Here is a plate of pasta. Here is a picture of an antique lamp for sale from an estate-sale company in Texas. “Everyone is trying to either make money or gain recognition”—and thereby make money—“for their taste,” Isabel Slone, who writes about fashion on the Substack Freak Palace, told me. An influencer can help move $1 million worth of swimsuits in three hours. For a solitary activity, a little bit shopping is perversely social. It is pleasantly intimate, knowing how an opinionated stranger feels about their chef’s knife, or their microwave, or the life-changing sweater that got them through their divorce and is available right now if you click the link in bio. Whether it is helpful consumer education is a separate question: “I do think that the affiliate-link economy,” Slone said, “contributes to this constant feeling of not knowing exactly what is good.”There is, of course, a way out. You could stop caring. You could embrace the good-enough and the suboptimal, understanding that a little bit shopping is a trap that keeps you shopping all the time. Eventually, I bought a T-shirt, which is in all ways absolutely adequate, and in no sense exceptional. And then, the next day, I saw a post about a T-shirt, which was better. I clicked.