At any given time, when you engage your Facebook News Feed, more than 1,500 pieces of content that very second are vying for your attention.
A survey conducted by Deloitte found that around 59% of smartphone users check a social media platform in the five minutes before going to bed and waking up within 30 minutes.
That's exhausting.
It is time to create more time for nothing.
Trained as an artist and working as a teacher, Jenny Odell's legacy may well be for her writing and provoking us to seek more uselessness in our lives.
It's time for us to reclaim our attention and realize we have more power than an algorithm.
There is an ongoing tension between being connected online and disconnected in the real world.
We all know we tend to stay online too much.
We all know we need to be online.
But do we all realize we have more power than hardware and software?
Even as I pen this, I am just a browser away from a black hole of distractions, temptations, and persuasions.
Powered by anthropology and behavior economics, digital platforms' software and the hardware we use keep us connected for their means.
These are not new observations.
Googling "digital detox" returns about 65,400,000 results.
But Odell's manifesto is less about checking out to be more productive or employing some goop-like digital detox plan.
Her book is about being in the moment.
Our lives aren't the past.
Our lives aren't the future.
Our lives are now.
Doing nothing means doing something: living with nature, community, and careful observation of the world.
"When we pry open the cracks in the concrete," Odell writes, "we stand to encounter life itself — nothing less and nothing more."
Book to read: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy -- Jenny Odell
Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.
-Marc
