How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

This book by Jenny Odell came up once on Tim Ferriss in the episodes we index. That mention was a genuine on-air recommendation, not just a passing reference. The people who brought it up: Cal Newport. Every occurrence below links to the episode page and to the exact second it was said on YouTube.

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.