Undercover Behaviorist: Odell’s Take on Skinner’s Theories

When I was reading Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, chapter two mentioned a seemingly interesting book that Odell was passionate about titled Walden Two by B. F. Skinner. I have always taken an interest in psychology and the science of human behavior so I thought this would be a great book to read for our next essay. While I was reading I realized that yes, like Odell pointed out, Walden Two is a dystopian society, but Odell’s and Skinner’s ideas on how to achieve their idea of a perfect society aren’t all too different from one another.

In my essay I start off by setting the stage and educating the reader on the background of B. F. Skinner as a psychologist and writer and explain his work and the principles behind it. Eventually, I get into the differences of the two authors and how Odell really challenges Skinner’s beliefs and theories about behavioral modification. The main point of my essay is to call Odell out and draw parallels between the authors’ rationales about how they should go about creating a better society, albeit in two very different directions “…if Odell were to explain how her readers can actually follow through on her ideas in their lives, she would see that in order to put those ideas into motion, you would need the same kind of behavioral modifications and conditioning demonstrated in Walden Two.”

https://koertel.medium.com/undercover-behaviorist-odells-take-on-skinner-s-theories-221300a45e33

Writing 11: The Attention Economy and the 2020 Presidential Race

When reading Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, I couldn’t help but think that some of her ideas on detoxing from technology and disconnecting could be extremely harmful to the social well being of the United States and could enable so many of the misinformation campaigns being created and driven during this year’s presidential election. Since the US has become so polarized during this election and injustice wreaks havoc, I thought it would be a good idea to write about how the election has created a new attention economy in the form of the news media and how all of the chaos has created burnout among Americans such as myself who are tired of constantly reading about new scandals and outrageous statements and claims made by the President.

In my essay, I try to establish the benefits of a detox that Odell suggests in her novel, the detriments if those ideals were put into practice, and then qualifying her viewpoint and suggesting things that Americans can actually do to preserve a good mental health, but also not fall prey to ignorance and lies put forth by certain administrations. I have decided that “…Americans should use critical thinking and re-allot attention from deceptive news stories and bitter fights between partisan sides to truth campaigns and social justice fights in order to maintain sanity and happiness in this polarized time.” Hopefully my essay can help you all to find a little bit of peace in this chaotic time.

View at Medium.com

View at Medium.com

https://medium.com/@koertel/the-attention-economy-and-the-2020-presidential-race-828cd451fcbe

View at Medium.com

Writing 4: Countering or Forwarding Jenny Odell

In Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, she references the idea of escapism best shown by the communes of the 1960’s and 70’s. In a time of unparalleled upheaval and discord in most aspects of life, people moved to communes to “exit from time and… start from scratch” (p. 39). Although she realizes that a commune is detrimental and would not be able stand on its own because of numerous pitfalls both in modern society and humanity’s need to retrace its steps when attempting to build a utopia, she does not take into consideration the negative effects it would have on both the people in the commune and the modern society existing outside of the confines and idealization.

Camp Grounded, a digital detox camp that went from something meaningful to people of all backgrounds to regain clarity and independence amongst a world of constant connection and technology to another function of corporate America with the goal to make workers more productive and make more money. Drop City, a commune meant to regain control and create an idealized version of society in the 1960’s turned from a community built on “‘rebuilding the economic, social, and spiritual structures of man from the bottom up.’” (p. 39) to a place where people came who were looking for a more simple life but found that it was much harder to create and maintain than originally thought. Odell’s examination of modern-day ‘retreats’ modeled after the failed communes of the past only goes so far with shortsighted reasoning as to why we will never be able to disconnect from our society, especially in today’s digital age. She does understand that with the rebuilding or reprogramming of a culture you must start with the basics, which can become points of contention whether it is on the way women are treated or how and when technology is used. She also understands that the building of a utopia is unattainable and anyone who tries will always fail because of internal and external pressures. Odell, however, does not see the impact past the success or failure of this attempt to deprogram society and make it more spiritual and less technological and unfeeling.

What Odell fails to see in her examination of the certain doom of communes and commune-like living is the impact this can have on society as a whole if it fulfills its purpose of translating to greater society. Idealist ways of living are always detrimental to the progression of society because reality is not being seen as it truly is, it is being seen through the rose-colored glasses. If we were to live in a world where all of the ideas of Camp Grounded were instated full-time, there would be no way to connect with people you are not physically close to. This would aid in so many types of misinformation, injustice, and corruption and ultimately end up creating a bigger monster than it was set out to eliminate. Society would never be able to organize on a grand scale to fight injustice and corruption as seen on social media today. Social media and electronic news sources help society to move forward as a whole whether spreading primary sources such as videos and posts or through secondary sources such as news articles analyzing those videos and posts and spreading them around the globe in seconds rather than in one city in days like print newspapers would. Although social media and other forms of electronic media can seem like a burden on mental health and ability to be productive, it allows humans to connect with others despite differences and ultimately create a better world where people are able to live mindfully and in harmony with their surroundings. 

Jenny Odell is correct in believing that utopias and communes are unsustainable ways to live for reasons pertaining to ultimate success of those ways of life but she did not take into account the ways these ways of living would destroy the connection between humans and mindfulness of social, environmental, and economic injustice that occurs around the world. Although it is beneficial to attempt to create better ways of life away from the constant connection of the age of technology, it is not realistic nor useful to only live with no technology, completely separate from the rest of humanity. After all, humans are social creatures and the more connection we have with humanity, the more empathetic and knowledgeable we become.