How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

A galvanising critique of the forces vying for our attention - and our personal information - that redefines what we view as productivity and reveals what we've been too distracted to see about ourselves and our world.

A Barack Obama favourite book of the year 2019
New York Times Bestseller

'She struck a hopeful nerve of possibility that I hadn't felt in a long time.' -Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker

Nothing is harder to do these days than nothing. But in a world where our value is determined by our data productivity, doing nothing may be our most important form of resistance.

So argues artist and critic Jenny Odell in this field guide to slowing down. Odell sees our attention as the most precious - and overdrawn - resource we have. Once we start paying a new kind of attention, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humanity's role in the environment, and arrive at a more meaningful understanding of happiness and fulfilment.

Far from a simple anti-technology screed, How to Do Nothing is an action plan for thinking beyond capitalist narratives of efficiency and value. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, it shows us how to preserve our inner lives and bring about change in a world that needs this more than ever.

' Odell wants to give readers permission to be a human, in a body, in a place.'-The Guardian

' An enthralling, searching new book ... Odell's expansive, maniacal curiosity oozes from every page ... her intricate, sprawling essays construct a thoughtful and convincing case for what we could gain if we directed our attention away from our screens, and towards our local communities.' -The Monthly