How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

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 book is a four-course meal in the age of Soylent.

• Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
• The Art of Noticing: 131 Ways to Spark Creativity, Find Inspiration, and Discover Joy in the Everyday
• I Like to Watch: Arguing My Way Through the TV Revolution
• On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
• Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
• Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It
• The Witches Are Coming
• How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care
• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
• Three Women