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dylanhenning 's review for:
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
by Jenny Odell
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Despite its title this book is not about doing nothing and being lazy. It’s an interesting conversation about how to take back our attention from companies, content, and algorithms that demand we be constantly online and put that attention towards activities and movements that will better our lives individually or as a collective community.
Jenny Odell doesn’t have all the answers and she doesn’t pretend to. This isn’t a simple checklist of things you can do to “do nothing” and then move on. But it’s a journey with Jenny as she learns how to implement changes in her life.
It’s a meandering narrative that eventually finds its way back to the point Jenny was making in each chapter. This might sound like a complaint of the book but I think it’s part of the point. This book isn’t meant to be to the point. Jenny is asking you to give her your attention and not lose interest after five minutes. She’s asking us to focus on the book so we can learn to focus our attention on things other than social media, Amazon, and TikTok with their algorithms designed to keep us clicking and refreshing for another instant hit of satisfaction.
Jenny Odell doesn’t have all the answers and she doesn’t pretend to. This isn’t a simple checklist of things you can do to “do nothing” and then move on. But it’s a journey with Jenny as she learns how to implement changes in her life.
It’s a meandering narrative that eventually finds its way back to the point Jenny was making in each chapter. This might sound like a complaint of the book but I think it’s part of the point. This book isn’t meant to be to the point. Jenny is asking you to give her your attention and not lose interest after five minutes. She’s asking us to focus on the book so we can learn to focus our attention on things other than social media, Amazon, and TikTok with their algorithms designed to keep us clicking and refreshing for another instant hit of satisfaction.