** A New York Times Bestseller **
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Time - The New Yorker
- NPR - GQ - Elle - Vulture - Fortune - Boing Boing -
The Irish Times - The New York Public Library - The Brooklyn Public
Library
"A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a
self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political
manifesto."--Jonah Engel Bromwich, *The New York Times Book Review
One of President Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of 2019"****
Porchlight's Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year
In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our
attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it
can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to
dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell
shows us how we can still win back our lives.
Odell sees our attention as the most precious--and overdrawn--resource
we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We
might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important ...
but 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 will change how you see your place in our world.
