More Young People Can't Make up Their Minds

A growing number of people in their 20s and 30s rely on smartphones or chance to make their daily decisions. The term to describe them is "Generation Maybe," and businesses are targeting them with peculiar marketing strategies.

One popular food delivery app recently added a "random" menu which allows the app to choose dishes for users who just cannot make up their mind.

Unique gift-shops, which sell "lucky boxes" for customers who have trouble choosing gifts, have popped up in the affluent Gangnam district and trendy Hongik University area. Customers have no idea what is inside.

A growing number of restaurants have added a new menu called "whatever."

Another smartphone app helps users get advice from others. The app, called SSOCAT, lets people post questions and receive answers online. In the first 100 days of its release, people have used the app to ask almost 5,000 questions, ranging from what kind of wallet to buy to whether to confess their feelings for another person.

This indecisiveness is also evident when it comes to making more important decisions.

German writer Oliver Jeges, whose book "Generation Maybe" focused on the phenomenon, said, "There are so many opportunities and options that we don't really know which way we should go."

Korea is no exception. Seol Dong-hoon at Chonbuk National University said, "As Koreans grow up with excessive interference from their parents, they have problems making important decisions on their own."

Lee Eun-hee at Inha University said, "Just like you end up with something you don't want when you buy a lucky box, young people may end up getting trapped in a vicious cycle if they rely on machines or other people to make important decisions."