It’s Friday night and you want to watch a good movie. You ask all your friends with similar movie tastes which are the must-see-ones. Or you probably would check out movie reviews online or the box office to help you choose a movie. If any of these options influenced you to watch some movie, then you are part of the information cascade. When we have limited information and we have opportunities to observe the actions of others, we may imitate the choices of others even if our information suggests an alternative choice.

Information cascade on a big scale can lead to fads. According to Joel Best, the author of the book Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads, fads follow a three-part cycle of beginning, then surging in popularity, then collapsing. Fads are everywhere around us. The reality TV craze started in the 1990s with a MTV show called The Real World. People everywhere tuned in to see real people interacting with each other in real life. In 2000, shows such as Survivor, Dancing with the Stars and American Idol caught on fire and the media industry is still occupied with reality TV shows such as Project Runway.

Surge of text messaging sent via cell phones, mad Sudoku fans, popularity of YouTube and MySpace may survive throughout the years and emerge as genuine innovations or die out some day and be labeled fad. In South Korea, fads grow and die out quickly and information cascade occurs relentlessly. A famous celebrity shows up with a new hair style and next thing you know, people on the street all seem to have that same hair style. When a newspaper reports that certain vegetable, such as tomato, is good for your body for some reason, all the tomatoes are sold out in the supermarkets.

Fads are so attractive because they claim to be the absolute right answer and then they are quickly replaced by the next one. For example, popular weight loss method evolved from low-calorie, low-carb, low-fat, high-fiber, milk shakes, and low carb again. Either weight loss method would work if people stick to one option, but they want to do it the best way: the way most people do it.

However, elements of many fads survive the rise-and-collapse cycle to last as innovations. Japanese perm technique of straightening even the most curliest hair, magic-straight, continue to be used by people around the world. Mission statements and attention to corporate culture were all parts of 1980s management fads that are now so normal that young managers are surprised to learn they are newer than video stores.

It would be interesting to study fads to learn more about ourselves and trends in the society, such as figuring out if a newly popular item or idea is a fad or an innovation. Is Obama’s online campaign with active grass-roots participation a fad or an innovation that would continue in future political campaigns? Also, studying explanations for the occurrences of fads besides information cascades would be another research subject matter. Are information networks to blame or do we submit to fads because we are drawn to new, exciting things?