How to Do Nothing: Book Review
1. What is your favorite quote from the book and why do you find it meaningful?
Jenny Odell’s book How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy is full of great insights on the way we live our lives, as well as incredible excerpts from influential authors and philosophers. I was particularly struck by the following passage:
“Indeed, so instinctively do we understand the value of an outsider’s perspective that history is full of people seeking remote hermits and sages, desperate for knowledge from a mind unconcerned with familiar comforts. Just as I need someone to observe things about myself or my writing that I can’t see, mainstream society needs the perspective of its outsiders and recluses to illuminate problems and alternatives that aren’t visible from the inside. That same journey that takes the seeker toward the sage takes him out of the world as we know it” (55).
I agree with the perspective that much of our modern society has tried to homogenize the lifestyles of the ways people live. Most people go to school until they graduate college, get a job, and then work until they retire. I think that more and more, people are coming to realize that while this may work for some people, there are so many other pathways that we can take in life. I love the perspective that sometimes, in order for growth and change to happen in society, it sometimes takes people going against the status quo to see things from a different perspective, and potentially notice problems that we cannot see from the inside.
2. Why do you think this book, released by indie publishing house Melville Press, has become an unexpected bestseller in Corona Times?
In a time where our lives have been segmented into isolation and online interaction, it makes sense that How to do Nothing has quickly risen in popularity since the beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The abrupt interruption of the routines, work life, and daily interactions that we all took for granted prior to going into lockdown has given the opportunity for many people to take a step back, and truly evaluate the lives that we were living somewhat unconsciously. Workdays became extended as people struggled to adjust to work from home, expectations rose as we no longer had excuses to not be “online”, and the social interactions that used to keep us connected to one another were forced to take place through screens and on platforms designed to keep us scrolling. With millions of people struggling with this new way of life and questioning if this is the best way to live, it makes sense that a book that works its way through these same struggles struck a chord with so many readers. While maybe not providing a quick solution to the question of “How do we change?” or “What do we do now?”, Jenny Odell provides a pathway for readers to begin to change their views on the world, and begin to shift how we interact with the world, environment, systems, and people that we experience on a daily basis. It seems that in a time of great uncertainty, a time that has raised endless questions, having a pathway forward has never been more necessary, and How to do Nothing is without a doubt a starting point.
3. How does the attention economy benefit from our social media activity and media streaming consumption?
While being a relatively new concept in our society, the “attention economy” has quickly become a massive topic of debate. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and the many other forms of social media that exist online have found ways to profit off of the business of connecting people. In a world that has become increasingly stuck in a mindset that productivity and worth is tied to the work and value you create for a company or for others, tech companies have found new ways to trick people into creating worth, both in terms of revenue for the company and worth and value in a social sense. Manipulative designs and addictive products have drawn people to spend much of their time using social media to learn about what friends are doing and what is happening in this world. By capturing this level of attention, these platforms have then been able to create massive profits as they place ads and try to sell products based on the specific interests of their users. As algorithms have improved, and the ability to determine interests has increased, not only has the ability to make profits, but the sites have become increasingly more addictive to users. As people within the tech industry often say, if you are not paying for a product, more likely than not, you are the product. It seems that more and more, social media companies move further away from public forums to data management firms that are profiting at our expense.
4. How does this book relate to the topic of celebrity culture?
Even before social media became interwoven into our everyday lives, celebrity culture revolved around a person’s fame causing people to want to know the ins and outs of how that person lives, what they are doing, and how they spend their time. While this process used to be facilitated by press, paparazzi, and blogs, social media has opened up the door for celebrities to choose the things that they want to share, and fans are able to interact directly with the people they love. In today’s online culture, whether it be influencers who may seem like celebrities to the users who follow them, or Hollywood stars, these celebrities have been able to not only build followings online, but also profit off of the attention economy as well.
5. Do you take digital detox breaks? If yes, describe them. Have they been more challenging during the quarantine era? Why?
I have attempted to take digital detox breaks occasionally in the past, usually taking the shape of a break from social media specifically. I have generally found that interacting with social media has more negative effects on my mental health and day to day life than any benefits that it brings, so I will occasionally delete the apps off of my phone to spend some time reconnecting to myself. It is amazing how at first, not having access to social media can feel like a hole in your life. However, I quickly noticed that much like Odell experiences in the cabin without service, that your phone becomes a much more mundane item. While these periods usually only last a few days, these breaks have allowed me to create better relationships with the things I consume online.
However, this has been almost impossible to do during quarantine. I recently saw something that went along the lines of: “During quarantine, we celebrate being done with sitting on our medium sized screens all day, by sitting in front of a bigger screen while scrolling on our smaller screens.” Even when I find myself spending time away from my screens nowadays, it sometimes feels like a way to pass time until finding myself in front of a screen again. With work and school being online, it seems like there is never an escape from the need to be online. More recently I have gotten into the routine of taking some time at the end of the day to meditate and journal as a way of detoxing from the day spent entirely in front of a screen. While I still feel the pull of digital media after this detox, I am amazed at how big a difference spending even a short amount of time with intentional, focused attention can have on how I interact with the world day to day.
6. Do you sleep with your phone or computer? Are you aware of impacts on your sleep cycles and relaxation caused by overnight proximity?
As someone who has dealt with sleep issues my entire life, I am more than aware of the impacts that screens and sleeping with your phone can have on your sleep cycles. Even with these struggles, I still find myself sleeping with my phone nearby, often playing music, a podcast, or something to add white noise. While I constantly remind myself that this is one of my worst habits along with checking my phone first thing in the morning, it is something that I have been yet to break. I actually had a period a few months ago where I did not have a phone for a few days while I waited for my new phone to come in the mail, where I noticed that I was not only sleeping better, but I was going to bed and getting tired earlier.
7. What is the role of nature in Odell’s book, in particular the role of birds?
Throughout How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell uses many different perspectives on the natural world, especially focusing on her passion for bird watching. It seems that Odell is often using this natural imagery as a juxtaposition to the world created through the attention economy. One of the main ways she uses natural imagery and bird watching is a way to establish the idea of the attention of place. Through this attention to place, we are able to interact and create understanding of the world around us. I think birdwatching then becomes an example of how to reshift our focus. She argues that bird watching is not a fair name for the hobby due to the fact that it is not a fair representation of the senses involved and the focus involved in noticing the birds around you. Through bird watching, we not only see the birds, but we notice their calls, the conditions in which they appear, the time of year when they are most common. By applying this depth to the way we apply our attention through our daily lives, we may be able to escape from the attention economy, and come out the other side with a better understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
8. Experiment: Leave your phone at home for one hour to talk a walk in your neighborhood. Write down your observations when you return and draw a map of your path. What did you observe? Take a photo of your map to include in your book review. Did the experience provide any revelations? Were you anxious, relieved, inspired? Did you notice anything you’d never seen before?
The walk I took that can be seen in the map above took place in the neighborhood around my parents house in Westfield, NJ. I started by walking around the small woods behind the house before walking a few blocks down the street to one of the local schools, and then turned to walk to and around a local park.
One of the first things that I noticed was how far sound travels. I live a few miles from the local highway and train line, and if you focused on the sounds in the distance, you could really notice the rumble of the trains and cars constantly passing by. You could hear dogs and kids playing blocks away, and the sounds of snow melting in the gutters of the houses I passed.
Taking inspiration from the book, I tried to consider the lives of the other people walking and those of the people living houses I walked passed. It was recycling day when I was out, so every house I passed had their recycling sitting out by the curb. When you begin to look at recycling like a story rather than just trash, I was amazed at how much you could learn about the people inside just from a quick glance at the piles. You could see how people were coping with the pandemic, with some people having tons of Amazon boxes, take-out containers, or cases of alcohol.
Having spent about half of the walk on nature trails, I was struck by the creeks that I came across. The snow we have gotten recently had filled them up to levels I had almost never seen before, and the water was rushing through them. It made me think of where these creeks were leading, and it wasn’t until I looked at the map while drawing out my walk that I noticed that while I had thought I had seen two separate bodies of water behind my house and in the park, they were in fact a single stream. On the trails, since the paths were covered in snow, I noticed that rather than following the trail markings, people were more likely to follow in the footsteps of people who had come before them, no matter where they were leading. I just felt like this was an interesting display of trust in others, people who we both did not know and were not even present in that moment.
9. What does Odell mean by ‘doing nothing?’ Are we capable of doing nothing?
Although Odell titled her book How to Do Nothing, she quickly clarifies that she is by no means actually advocating for readers to do nothing. Rather, she views ‘doing nothing’ as a means of escaping from the systems and perspectives that we hold about being productive in our society. She is not advocating for readers to drop out of society and become ascetic monks, but rather challenge the ways in which we view the world, and the feelings that we hold about always needing to be doing something. Her perspective on nothingness focuses on the way we give attention and focus to the world around us.
