Robots but Humans: Reading Jenny Odell Reading Ressler & Thompson

Essay link:

https://hoqas.medium.com/robots-but-humans-reading-jenny-odell-reading-ressler-thompson-e29888c2fd1e

To live in this digital world, we must be productive. Otherwise, the person would be considered to be lazy in society. Therefore, in the two books How to do Nothing Resisting the Attention Economy and Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution the authors discuss the issue of productivity and offer different solutions to the issue. In Jenny Odell’s book How To Do Nothing, she references many different resources to better explain her ideas. One of these references is Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution. Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson is about the idea that the way we think and believe about work which is working forty hours five days a week is out of date and it does not work. Both books agree that in this capitalist society all people have to be productive. Odell discusses that in the productive digital world today makes it hard to do nothing. People are always busy doing something. similarly ,  Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson went further and demonstrated how the expectations of being productive lead people to pretend to be productive even when they are free. The two books  provide different solutions to the issue. Odell  generally suggests that people should be given the time to do nothing. On the other hand, Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson claim that in order to solve this issue the world shell uses ROWE. ROWE is a human resource management strategy that pays employees based on their work results rather than the number of hours they spend at work.

A Destructive Pandemic Ruining the Attention Economy… Even More

After reading Jenny Odell’s “How to Do Nothing” I found it quite easily to connect with her through the destructive pandemic, Coronavirus. In my essay, I decided to talk about one of Odell’s big topic, which was the attention economy. This pandemic has caused devastating consequences throughout the world, but also opened up a big opportunity for people to make money. One of those people being Joseph Paul Watson, who produced a video labeled “bat soup” that went viral and soon reached the attention-based economy. The coronavirus, the spread of fake news, and Jenny Odell are all factors of a similar theme.

“One thing I have learned about attention is that certain forms of it are contagious, when you spend enough time with someone who pays close attention to something, you inevitably start to pay attention to some of the same things”. This quote links to Odell’s bird watching hobby. This allows her to disengage from the attention economy and define her personal definition of productivity.

View at Medium.com

https://medium.com/@spaciano/a-destructive-pandemic-ruining-the-attention-economy-even-more-aa2bb07b142e

View at Medium.com

Technology is Addicting

In a society where so much of our precious time and energy is spent online, or at our jobs, it is important to take a step back in order to re-center ourselves, and recognize what is truly important in our lives. Odell illuminates the importance of removing one’s self from the “attention economy”, in other words, disengaging from social media and investing that time or effort into something else meaningful. In chapter two, Odell writes about the experience of Levi Felix, “In 2008, at the age of twenty-three, Felix had been working seventy-hour weeks as the VP of a startup in Los Angeles when he was hospitalized for complications arising from stress. Taking this as a wake-up call, he travelled to Cambodia with Brooke Dean, his girlfriend and later wife: together, they unplugged and discovered mindfulness and meditation of a distinctly Buddhist flavor.” Feeling immensely overwhelmed, Felix recognized his need to disconnect and go through some sort of “digital detox”. This story resembles that of Odell’s father’s experience she writes about in chapter one, he takes off from work for two years where he is able to spend time doing things he enjoys and deems “productive”, contrary to societal standards. After this time off, Odell’s father is described as having a new sense of clarity and creativity, which greatly benefits him when returning to work where he is able to create several new patents. 

Neither Odell nor Felix are advocating for people to completely quit using technology and social media all together, rather both urge individuals to use it more sparingly. “Felix was particularly concerned with the addictive features of everyday technology. While he wouldn’t disavow technology entirely, claiming to be a ‘geek, not a Luddite,’ he thought that people could at least learn a healthier relationship to it.” When hearing the word “addiction” most of us tend to think about drug and alcohol abuse, however it has become more apparent that a great deal of individuals are addicted to their phones, computers, and social media. It can be difficult to recognize such addiction in one’s self due to the fact that technology and social media are so prevalent, useful, and normalized in everyday life. Various studies and articles have outlined the similarities between drug or alcohol addiction with that of technology. While seemingly very different, each causes the user to experience neurological complications, psychological disturbances, and social problems. Odell says, “In other words, digital distraction was a bane, not because it made people less productive, but because it took them away from the one life they had to live.” 

In my own personal experience, I’ve gone on several family vacations where the wifi and internet connection were sparse, meaning there were less opportunities to go on my phone or computer. This proved to be beneficial in that I was more engaged with the people around me, and was able to enjoy different activities without distractions. However, as Odell mentions “I’ve already written that the “doing nothing” I propose is more than a weekend retreat.” Of course it was easier for me to disengage from the “attention economy” while on vacation, as I was constantly busy exploring, going to the beach, and spending time with family; in other words I probably would not have been on my phone regardless of wifi or internet connection. Another experience, perhaps the most eye-opening, occurred several months ago. During my senior year, I took a psychology elective course where we learned about numerous topics, one being addiction. My teacher described the word in layman’s terms, saying that addiction (to anything) is the point at which your indulgence makes your life unmanageable. Odell urges readers to actively restrain from indulging in the “attention economy” and claims that “distractions keep us from doing the things we want to do …long term, they keep us from living the lives we want to live.”

In this class, we performed an experiment where our teacher took everyone’s cellphones for two days. Our job was to document how we felt, or what we did and thought during this time. My experience was quite strange as it included many ups and downs. During the time this social experiment was conducted, I was on crutches because I had previously broken my ankle, meaning I was already feeling very physically limited. Without my phone for two whole days, not only did I feel physically limited, but also socially limited. I couldn’t text friends, check up on social media, or even google something I was curious about. While these factors were upsetting, contrarily I was also able to focus better on my homework without the distraction of my phone by my side, and was able to converse more openly with the people around me, rather than friends over text. I realized that although not completely enjoyable, the mini “digital detox” I went through was beneficial to me, and I began to limit my use

“Doing Nothing”, a new, popular proposal

Author, Jenny Odell, does an excellent job of painting a picture in the audience’s mind. In her book, How to Do Nothing, her main point is to express how to do less and enjoy your life more. She states that there is two lessons to be learned in this book. One is disengaging from from the attention economy and the other is reengaging with something else. The “something else” is nothing besides time and space, Odell explains. Jenny Odell says she tries to focus a lot on her surroundings. She argues that because the internet strips us of our sense of place and time, we can counter its force by placing ourselves within our physical environment, by becoming closer to the natural world. She goes onto say we are in a contemporary society, and what we can do to fix it and and fix ourselves. Ironically, the most effective tactic against our 24/7 culture of productivity might just be doing nothing. The author argues, when we stop, step back, and refocus our attention, we can begin to see the outline of a better, more meaningful existence. Odell states “The point of doing nothing, as I define it, isn’t to return to work refreshed and ready to be more productive, but rather to question what we currently perceive as productive”. Jenny Odell asks her audience why the modern idea of productivity is often a frame for what is actually the destruction of the natural productivity in an ecosystem. In more in depth, she explains how her happiest times were when she was completely aware of being alive. She says “In those moments, the idea of success as a teleological would have made no sense; the moments were ends in themselves, not steps on a ladder”. Odell talks about art work being a huge part of her life. She used computers to make her art, so it was an art-and-technology category. She states that her only real interest in technology was how it gives us more access to physical reality. Jenny Odell, says she’s not quite fully against technology. “There are forms of technology, from tools that let us observe the natural world to decentralized, noncommercial social networks, that might situate us more fully in the present” (Odell xii). She connects her ideas from technology with social media. There is times where one cannot fully express themselves on social media. The most damaging idea is commercial social media, which is affecting the way we live and see ourselves. Jenny Odell hopes that, How to Do Nothing will become a new, popular proposal, instead of our productivity obsessed environment. Hopefully by doing nothing, people will find ways of connecting to self- meaningful things. Obviously, when doing nothing, it is not activism, but she explains activism very clear. She preaches how important it is to pay attention to the little things. Odell uses a personal example saying “One thing I have learned about attention is that certain forms of it are contagious. When you spend enough time with someone who pays close attention to something, you inevitably start to pay attention to some of the same things”. I can personally connect to the author with a pattern of attention. One thing I tend to pay a lot of attention to is uncommon kindness. I always choose to notice when someone makes someone else’s day.