Record of Restaurant Carousel Loop
The scroll began at 8:03 PM. Dinner was ordered at 8:51 PM from the first restaurant visited.
FIELD NOTES: RESTAURANT CAROUSEL LOOP
Observer: Household Member, Unnamed
Location: Home, Swiggy App Open
Period: January 2021
Day 4, 20:03
Opened Swiggy. The familiar grid appeared: the same restaurants as yesterday, ranked by estimated delivery time. Biryani place. Pizza place. The Chinese restaurant we have ordered from eleven times and never discussed aloud. Scrolled down. Nothing new.
Scrolled back up.
Day 4, 20:09
Completed a second full scroll. Noted the same options. Considered the Chinese restaurant. Decided against it without articulating why. Scrolled to the biryani place. Read the menu. Closed the menu. Opened the pizza place. Read the menu. Felt that pizza was a decision made out of tiredness rather than preference.
This is a distinction I am still unable to explain.
Day 4, 20:21
The Zomato app was opened as a comparative check. The same restaurants appeared on Zomato, with slightly different estimated times. Restaurant Carousel Loop first consumes a few seconds that nobody considers worth discussing. Those seconds acquire tools, reminders, and preferred techniques for doing them correctly.
The Zomato app was closed.
Day 4, 20:34
A family member entered and asked whether dinner had been decided. I said I was looking. This was accurate. The family member suggested the biryani place. I said I had considered it. The family member left.
Day 4, 20:51
Ordered from the biryani place. The service is supposed to remove meal work. Choosing and tracking it has become its own task. The order took forty-eight minutes to decide. Forty-one minutes of that was the same three restaurants viewed from different angles.
The routine eventually needs its own exception policy for the rare person who refuses to perform it. Nobody in this household has refused. The carousel continues.
Day 5, 20:06
Opened Swiggy. Completed one scroll. Opened the biryani place immediately. Closed it. Opened the Chinese restaurant. This felt like progress. It was not progress. It was a new carousel.
Evidence of one successful workaround is sufficient to govern all future cases. We ordered from the Chinese restaurant. It was fine.