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How to Do Nothing

Resisting the Attention Economy

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How to Do Nothing

By: Jenny Odell
Narrated by: Rebecca Gidel
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A galvanizing critique of the forces vying for our attention - and our personal information - that redefines what we think of as productivity, reconnects us with the environment, and reveals all that we’ve been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world.

Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity...doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to doing nothing (at least as capitalism defines it). Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have. Once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress.

Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this audiobook is a four-course meal in the age of Soylent.

©2019 Jenny Odell (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books Environment History & Culture Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Politics & Government Science Social Sciences Technology & Society Conservation Technology Capitalism Socialism
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Wowza, I was convinced that Rebecca Gidel was actually the Microsoft Word speech tool from 2003.

I thought the book had a lot of pertinent ideas for our time. However, it really required an active intention to keep going back.

Interesting

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If there was ever evidence that the West hit peak wokeness in 2019-20, this book is it. In a work ostensibly supposed to be a "field guide" for reclaiming one's attention, Field openly offers nothing in the way of practical recommendations. Instead, she takes the opportunity to inundate the reader with what Ezra Klein has since correctly diagnosed as left wing politics of scarcity, rather than those of abundance. Her central call to action, "manifest dismantling," is a damning example of the naievity of people from this school of thought. From celebrating the removal of footpaths (how's that community meant to be accessible, Jenny?) to criticising the development of new apartments (where are all the immigrants meant to live, Jenny?), she writes as the quintessential champagne socialist: seemingly wanting all of the feel-good things, just not in her own back yard, of course. Her own substantial privilege is acknowledged, and then immediately dismissed with but a wave of the hand, as if its not supposed to really matter that most of her readers can't work on their own schedule as she can. And despite her apparent allergy to productivity as a desirable goal, its sometimes not even clear that she believes her own ideas - such as when she justifies Fukuoka's minimalist farming practices on the basis that they produce more yield than conventional farming. There are redeeming qualities to this book, to be sure - Odell references some interesting ideas (mostly from other people) as she meanders through her arguments, and she admittedly makes a very good point that if we were to place our attention elsewhere, then bioregionalism would be a sensible place with which to start. But as for offering any tips on how to reclaim said attention, Odell's work has all the value of a Nike "just do it" advertisement: very little in practice, if any at all. In fact, her head is so far in the sand on this point, that when she briefly acknowledges the view (reality) that since complex algorithms are built to outsmart us then maybe we might not be able to simply will our attention away from them, her genius rebuttal is to virtually say, "well I'd rather not think that," before ignoring it for the rest of the book. Indeed, Jenny shows a propensity for identifying, stating, and then dismissing without evidence, any and all inconvenient arguments that might undermine her position. All in all, I think this book was an infuriating read, and its greatest virtue lies in its capacity to exercise the reader's willful attention. After all, if I made it through this from start to finish, perhaps the sky is the limit on how I can control it in future.

Getting through this book was a personal achievement in attention unto itself

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