Well. I obviously missed this book when it hyped in 2019. Perhaps I’ve seen it in some bookstore, though I doubt it. Since I’m reading books on technology, Brian Christian (a review on his book The alignment problem is coming soon) mentioned this book on The Ezra Klein Show and I finally read it.
Jenny Odell, an artist and former teacher at Stanford University, wrote a book on how to do nothing (resisting the attention economy), published in 2019, on… many things. Usually, the books is classified as related to technology (and/or science), which can confuse a reader like me, because it’s not about merely about tech’s (contemporary) inherent obsession with attention and/or societal effects, but about being present, bonding with and relating to other beings, forgetting yourself.
Odell opposes the sense and notion of time, “especially concerning technologies that encourage a capitalist perception of time, place, self and community.” Odell’s desire is ”awareness of one’s participation in history and in a more-than-human community.” We should expand our sense of time, sympathy, empathy and embrace more than ourselves, more than humans. Life isn’t merely about me, my ego. I concur that time is, by many, perceived as production and nothing but production. The Marxist Franco “Bifo” Berardi words are quoted as “time becomes an economic resource that we can no longer justify spending on “nothing””. Listen to many Swedish debates throughout the years, and you’ll hear the arguments against decreasing the numbers of working hours annually, or why weekends, holidays or daylight “saving time” (another book from Odell I’m soon reading) cost money – time isn’t productive. Swedes are their jobs, their occupation – or nothing, meaning you’re nothing if you don’t have an obvious occupation.
Furthermore, she problematises how come nurturing and tending is unproductive, or at least not as productive as proper (industrial or consumer-based) production, because it’s not producing something new. The newness is inherit in a capitalist economy.
Later on she questions the ideal of retreating (dubbed “The green wave” in Sweden during the 1970’s, related to Walkaway by Cory Doctorow, another book in-reading) from the hectic city life, with digital detox “treatments” (my brackets), because they’re simply for people with the right resources at their disposal. She urges us to participate, not hide or be exclusively elusive, and contemplate with others, rather than run away in an meaningless effort of releasing ourselves from society.
Technology
Related Odell asks “What does it mean to construct digital worlds while the actual world is crumbling before our eyes?” She argues for placefulness, to be situated in reality, where we actually are at any given moment. How meaningful are digital worlds when climate change alters the very foundation of humanity – is it of any use?
Odell bashes tech profiles as different as the “tech mogul” (my brackets) Peter Thiel and Tristan Harris (the famous, sympathetic ex-Google employee, co-founder of Center for Humane Technology). She can’t see the difference in their efforts: what are they actually doing to improve the world – to give us more technology? We don’t need it. We must take time to think and act together with other people in real life. We must contemplate and realise the conception and perception of time is different. It simply can’t be seen as merely production.
“Could augmented reality simply mean putting your phone down? And what (or who) is sitting in front of you when you finally do?” Odell asks. For someone who watched Spike Jonze’s movie Her and adored it, this is a blow. But a good one, right on the cheek where I need it. Reality is where we are, not where we want to be. We cannot create a true disconnect, however much we wish to daydream or watch things on the Internet. You simply cannot wish yourself to Mars or to the next week. You are where you are.
“… the politics of technology are stubbornly entangled with the politics of public space and of the environment.” Yes. Much has been written on the topic of technology in the shape of social media or the Internet. But Odell turns to the public space. Suddenly, I’m fully aware of the the very few spaces, without money involved, that exist for an inhabitant or visitor of a city/municipality. Most places require you to spend money for presence, and the public spaces (indoors, I might add) are few. It isn’t simply about having money, but being able to be you in a place that doesn’t demand anything from you. Sitting at a table in the public library without spending is undervalued and with so much more than currency. It should be valued more than money.
One of the best passages of the whole book is on the personality on social media versus real life. The inability to be yourself on social media and the ability to actually change your mind seems to be dissipating. People around you see a complex person, an identity that keeps evolving, whereas the identity on social media is constant, “as monolithic and timeless as a brand.”
Odell mentions an art student “working” at an American company in 2008, spending her time staring out the window or going up and down the elevator, her job consisted of thinking. Sitting by a computer, secretly or blatantly reading posts on social media or news articles hides behind the mask of working, as you’re actually staring at the computer screen. Looking at the world, thinking things through, isn’t classified as work. It’s a blatant breaking of the rules – being unproductive. I can relate to this very well. It’s better to stare at a turned-off screen than out the window, because the latter signifies “doing nothing”. Even staring at useless Internet webpages is perceived as better than walking the corridors pondering a real issue related to work. People will ask what you’re actually doing staring out that window or on that walk. Is it really productive?
I will return to the issue of attention in later reviews and posts. I’m thinking about writing much more on this very topic, since, Odell writes “attention may be the last resource we have left to withdraw.” Attention is what you give to something else and time is a factual variable of your very life. Without time, you’re dead.
Productiveness
Achieving wealth by saving at least 10 % of your wage and invest in the stock market – FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) – has been a popular concept, or job, or aspiration, for many years in Sweden. Probably since the financial crisis of 2008-2010. As an idea it challenges the classic work ethics: work for 40 years, earn your wage and then retire and do some things (mainly travel and drink red wine) before you die comfortably of old age. Instead, work your ass off (as part of the educated middle class), save 10-50 % of your wage, invest correctly on the stock market, and retire when you’re about 40 years old. Spend the rest of your life with your kids, and do some projects (that remain focused on you, your ego) and beg to all possible gods that the stock market is continuously fed oil, coal and all the rest. Both ideas rest on basic mathematical solutions and – productivity.
Odell challenges this idea completely, by claiming you should spend together with other people, walking in the vicinity of your house/flat, listen to people, engage with people, feel your emotions and don’t think of time as productive or non-productive, realising diversity species-crossing is as important as you are – everything in your life isn’t simply about you. It’s about multitude.