How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy - Jenny Odell
A game-changer for the situation we find ourselves in, How to Do Nothing is a call-to-arms for observation and useful participation in a world that that seems committed to homogenisation and idle consumption.
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. We find every last minute captured, optimised, or appropriated as a financial resource for the technologies we use daily. We consume algorithmic versions of ourselves, submit our free time to numerical evaluation, and maintain personal brands in digital space.
After the American presidential election of 2016, Jenny Odell felt so overstimulated and disoriented by information, misinformation, and the expressions of others, that reality itself seemed to slip away. How To Do Nothing is her action plan for resistance. Drawing on the ethos of tech culture, a background in the arts, and personal storytelling, Jenny Odell makes a powerful argument for refusal: refusal to believe that our lives are instruments to be optimised.
Published 07/01/21 / Melville House Publishing
9781612198552 / Paperback
A game-changer for the situation we find ourselves in, How to Do Nothing is a call-to-arms for observation and useful participation in a world that that seems committed to homogenisation and idle consumption.
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. We find every last minute captured, optimised, or appropriated as a financial resource for the technologies we use daily. We consume algorithmic versions of ourselves, submit our free time to numerical evaluation, and maintain personal brands in digital space.
After the American presidential election of 2016, Jenny Odell felt so overstimulated and disoriented by information, misinformation, and the expressions of others, that reality itself seemed to slip away. How To Do Nothing is her action plan for resistance. Drawing on the ethos of tech culture, a background in the arts, and personal storytelling, Jenny Odell makes a powerful argument for refusal: refusal to believe that our lives are instruments to be optimised.
Published 07/01/21 / Melville House Publishing
9781612198552 / Paperback
A game-changer for the situation we find ourselves in, How to Do Nothing is a call-to-arms for observation and useful participation in a world that that seems committed to homogenisation and idle consumption.
Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. We find every last minute captured, optimised, or appropriated as a financial resource for the technologies we use daily. We consume algorithmic versions of ourselves, submit our free time to numerical evaluation, and maintain personal brands in digital space.
After the American presidential election of 2016, Jenny Odell felt so overstimulated and disoriented by information, misinformation, and the expressions of others, that reality itself seemed to slip away. How To Do Nothing is her action plan for resistance. Drawing on the ethos of tech culture, a background in the arts, and personal storytelling, Jenny Odell makes a powerful argument for refusal: refusal to believe that our lives are instruments to be optimised.
Published 07/01/21 / Melville House Publishing
9781612198552 / Paperback
