Why do nothing? We have just one life so why not optimize our productivity, maximize our social networks online, and allow algorithms to choose the most engaging content for us? Well, perhaps there’s something not captured by the capitalist notion of productivity. Maybe digital encounters between branded personalities are not the most fulfilling ones. And it could be that what makes content engaging is the anxiety, envy, and agitation it arouses.

When Odell calls for doing nothing, it’s of course “nothing” only from the modern perspectives of productivity and usefulness—the very ideas it’s set to actively resist. Things such as art, non-commercial public spaces, and nature’s ecosystems have immense value for us but are often considered unproductive and are hence regularly under threat. Doing nothing is about stopping to observe, listen, and reflect with the aim to heal from overstimulation and bring about real change.

A manifestation of how the concepts of efficiency and usefulness have ventured from work to reign in people’s free time is what Odell calls the “attention economy”: the commercial social media platforms monetize people’s attention for advertising revenue and thus have a financial incentive to keep their users in a perpetual loop of distraction. This robs us of the time, space, and context needed for creativity and profound conversations. High connectivity allows waves of hysteria to spread rapidly among pre-compatible minds but the informational overload prevents sensitivity—which is needed for growing one’s understanding in a meaningful way.

For many, retreat might seem like a tempting way to avoid the perils of the modern society. Odell presents examples ranging from Epicurus’s garden school in fourth-century BC Athens to the 1960s communal experiments in America. Their members shared a determination to renounce wealth and reputation and to rather free themselves from excessive desires. That was easier said than done. Most of the 60s communes were short-lived due to problems in governance: they quickly found out that politics couldn’t be just simply avoided and replacing them with design would concentrate the power to the leaders.

Odell argues that permanent retreats are still dependent on the wider social fabric and ignore their responsibilities for society unless they engage in dialogue with the outside world. These perspectives can illuminate problems and present alternatives for the mainstream. Instead of total renunciation, the author advocates for periodically stepping away to contemplate and returning to participate.

Another option is “refusal-in-place”: neither assimilating nor fully escaping society. Instead of participating according to the system’s rules, one can exit to another frame of reference such as sarcastic compliance or civil disobedience. However, many don’t have the wiggle room required by this kind of tactic. The author refers to many American workers scared of protesting oppressive working conditions due to nonexistent job security and slim financial buffers. Rosa Parks, famous for refusing to give her seat for a white passenger in the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, was almost ruined by her arrest and couldn’t find full employment for ten years.

Refusal requires a degree of latitude—a margin—enjoyed at the level of the individual (being able to personally afford the consequences) and at the level of society (whose legal attitude toward noncompliance may vary).

For a modern target of refusal, Odell suggests the attention economy because attention is necessary for any other significant refusal. Yet, the option of outright quitting social media might only be available for people who possess enough social capital and whose livelihoods don’t depend on it. Instead, the author would prefer to find a way to directly challenge the foundations of the attention economy. She suggests we intentionally direct our attention, understand the algorithms trying to manipulate us, and deliberate before acting on social media. I think that’s a tall order when our actions and reactions are logged, measured, and used to find our weak spots by algorithms developed by the most capable technology companies in the world.

Odell acknowledges the problem and recognizes that many experts argue we should focus on making persuasion more ethical instead of relying on users’ self-control. She disagrees on the grounds that the users’ attention shouldn’t be directed based on what’s considered good for them by the designers. That seems a somewhat narrow view of ethical persuasion, leaving out the discussion of which patterns are considered distracting or misleading. Nevertheless, users’ vigilance is probably needed if we want to see a change for the better.

According to Odell, the ultimate goal of doing nothing should be to “wrest our focus from the attention economy and replant it in the public, physical realm” which takes conscious effort. Sustaining attention requires constantly bringing it back to the target, continuously finding new aspects from it. Curiosity allows us to orient outwards from ourselves, looking at things instead of through them, seeing them as they are and not just for their instrumental value. This builds a richer world for us because what we pay attention to renders our reality. The author’s world has been more full of birds since she started bird-watching (which she’d call “bird-noticing” as it’s more about hearing than seeing them).

Open-ended contact with reality not only determines how we see the world but also shapes ourselves. The personal brands built in the attention economy are confident, cohesive, and constant. But rather than an integrated self, each of us is a blend of unconscious stuff happening in our brains, largely determined by interactions with our surroundings. Today’s algorithms surface to us mostly people and content similar to those we know and like, limiting the possibilities to discover new sides of our personalities.

And if we’re able to leave room for the encounters that will change us in ways we can’t yet see, we can also acknowledge that we are each a confluence of forces that exceed our own understanding. This explains why, when I hear a song I unexpectedly like, I sometimes feel like something I don’t know is talking to something else I don’t know, through me. For a person invested in a stable and bounded ego, this kind of acknowledgment would be a death wish. But personally, having given up on the idea of an atomic self, I find it to be the surest indicator that I’m alive.

Attentive observation also exposes us to the context in which things happen, a precondition for truly comprehending a phenomenon. Compare that to digital content feeds where our attention hops from one piece to the next without spatial or temporal neighbors. That not only results in a shallow understanding but is a favorable environment for stirring up quarrels over intentionally surfaced posts that seem offensive out of context. The outcome is a “lowest-common-denominator philosophy of sharing”, limiting us to topics safe for anyone from family and friends to employers and enemies. Furthermore, Odell finds that changing our minds—generally a good thing to do when we learn more about something—is often framed as a weakness online, also contributing towards monolithic and timeless personal brands.

We can see that social media is not a replacement for private face-to-face discussions with intention, attention, and context. But can we fix it? The author shows tentative interest towards a handful of nascent decentralized social networks without business models dependent on catalyzing toxic user behavior. Then again, maybe more importantly, she argues for taking our eyes off the screens and discovering the world. After all, our fates are interlinked to the living beings (not just humans) around us.

Ultimately, against the placelessness of an optimized life spent online, I want to argue for a new “placefulness” that yields sensitivity and responsibility to the historical (what happened here) and the ecological (who and what lives, or lived, here).

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. First published in 2019.