How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

(Paperback)

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In a world where our every minute is captured, optimised or appropriated, How to Do Nothing offers a much-needed action plan for slowing down and living more responsively. A galvanising critique of the forces vying for our attention - and our personal information - that redefines what we view as productivity and reveals what 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 data productivity, doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance. So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to slowing down. Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have. Once we start paying a new kind of attention, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humanity's role in the environment, and arrive at a more meaningful understanding of happiness and fulfilment. Far from a simple anti-technology screed, How to Do Nothing is an action plan for thinking beyond capitalist narratives of efficiency and value. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, it shows us how to preserve our inner lives and bring about change in a world that needs this more than ever.

Author Bio

Jenny Odell is an artist and writer who teaches at Stanford University and has been an artist-in-residence at Facebook, the Internet Archive and the San Francisco Planning Department, among others. She exhibits her art all over the world, and lives in Oakland, California.