How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

This is a kind of philosophy for living formed in the 1970s but according to Odell is informed by the practices of Indigenous peoples. The idea is to live in harmony with all life-forms within natural areas defined loosely by geography. The focus is not just on the environment, however. Instead, it also encompasses political and economic systems as well as cultural practices. It encourages an awareness and stewardship of the land and, because each area is unique, discourages a homogeneous, “one size fits all” approach.

This term is used to describe the kind of communication found online and in social media. It refers to the aspects in which it takes place instantaneously and for a single audience, which strip all context out of it. In face-to-face communication, different physical locations provide spatial context, making the communication tailored to only those persons present. Likewise, temporal context is possible, such that time is available to provide explication and allow for deep thought before responding. Without these contexts, information overload and distortion occurs; with them, people have more meaningful and deeper connections to the area they inhabit and the community of which they are a part.

Greek philosopher Epicurus founded the garden school in the fourth century BCE. After buying a garden outside of Athens, he founded a school there as a reprieve from the hustle and bustle of the city. The focus was on a simple, contemplative life that Odell calls both “an escape and a curative” (35) and the idea of happiness comes from this simplicity. It was also noteworthy in that it accepted students from a variety of backgrounds, which was unusual at the time. The author uses this as an example to show the long tradition of rejecting mainstream society.

These terms were used by philosopher Martin Buber in his book I and Thou to describe different relationships people can have. In many cases, each person sees him- or herself as the center of everything and experiences others (people or things) as discrete entities from that vantage point. This is the I-It relationship, which focuses on how the other affects or can be used by the “I.” Conversely, an I-Thou relationship does not objectify the other but sees it as an equal entity.

This is the author’s answer to the 19th-century concept of Manifest Destiny, which held that it was God’s will for Americans of European background to spread westward across the continent from the original states in the east. This was a sign of supposed progress, in which the land was tilled for crops and railroads were built. Too often, however, it actually resulted in destruction—of the land, animals, and even the society of Indigenous peoples. In manifest dismantling, Odell envisions a reversing of this process that returns the land to its original state and honors the history of the people who first inhabited it.

Old Survivor is the nickname for the last remaining old-growth redwood in Oakland, California, where Odell lives. Its relatively short height and twisted shape probably spared it from the logging in the past that decimated the other old-growth trees in the area. As the sole survivor, it stands as a symbol of resistance-in-place that Odell advocates and of defining terms for oneself. Regarding the latter, its usefulness actually lay in not being conventionally useful to the loggers, who passed on it. This is Odell’s hope for all of us: deciding for ourselves what makes us happy and what constitutes our own usefulness beyond being “productive.”

This refers to the look and usage of an app’s or website’s graphical user interface that is designed in such a way as to garner the highest attention and even attempt to become addicting. The design uses the same fundamentals of behavioral science that advertising used throughout the 20th century, as well as new ideas formed since then. One example Odell gives is the “pull-to-refresh” feature on Twitter (which other apps have now adopted). Swiping down on a touchscreen refreshes the feed to check for new posts. Such a feature has an addicting nature because it targets people’s desire for something new or to be rewarded for an action/behavior (the act of swiping). Anything can be part of persuasive design if it is intended to hold our attention and keep us engaged with an app. Simple examples are things like color coding for different meanings or placing a number over an inbox icon to show the number of new messages.

This is a term coined by philosopher Hannah Arendt, which Odell calls “the seed of democracy” and describes as “any collection of people who speak and act meaningfully together” (176). While there are no strictly defined limits to this collection, people must be in close enough proximity that they can interact in person, and the group must be small enough so that people can be individual actors with meaningful agency. Odell compares it to Martin Buber’s “I-Thou” relationship except at the group level instead of the individual one.

Robin Wall Kimmerer uses this term in her book Braiding Sweetgrass to refer to the sad feeling humans have when alienated from other species of life all around them. By this Kimmerer means both plants and animals, which she thinks of as our neighbors. As both a trained scientist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she knows the names of all the species around her and gains a feeling of comfort from this, knowing she is not isolated from the other life-forms in the community. Odell uses this idea in her discussion of the self being less distinct than we once thought and more enmeshed in the web of (all) life.

Standing apart is the author’s term for the method she envisions to deal with the attention economy. After reviewing the idea of stepping back or dropping out practiced through the ages by refuseniks, she concludes that just isolating ourselves from the world is not enough. We need to stay in the world but interact with it on our own terms. While we do need to take breaks at times (something the attention economy prevents), they should not be permanent. Standing apart “allow[s] yourself to believe in another world while living in this one” (62).

This is Odell’s term for framing things differently so that we occupy a new space in which we can be both in society but not ruled by it. She introduces this after explaining that Diogenes, the philosopher in ancient Greece whom she discusses in Chapter 3, never dropped out of society but rather remained to act as a gadfly. It’s this behavior she calls the third space—basically, participating in society but not in the way expected.