Refusing the Attention Economy’s Grasp

As I began the process of reading Jenny Odell’s book, “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy,” I initially believed that her project in writing was to provide a self-help book for her readers by sharing her own and others’ experiences of the negative impact the attention economy has on our lives, providing many examples of how she and others have escaped the pressure to always be productive.  Odell recommends that we should all step away from social media more often and attend to our individual need for relaxation and enjoyment. However, after some thoughtful consideration, I came to realize that Odell not only wrote a self-help book, but as she mentioned, it also became a call to activism.    What stood out to me the most in her writing was her persuasive argument that we are wasting precious time to our all-consuming obsession with our social media platforms and devices.

I have gained an entirely new perspective on how I spend my time now.  Othello’s quote in Odell’s book, “Leave me but a little to myself” spoke to my heart, making me realize that I am not being selfish for seeking time and space to retreat from the demands of the attention-seeking world.  Every day now, I block off time for myself to relax and enjoy those things that bring me the most pleasure.  I hope those who read my essay will also consider re-examining their own priorities in life to make sure to leave a little time for themselves.

Odell, J. (2020) “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy.” Melville House.

View at Medium.com

https://medium.com/@cherylk/refusing-the-attention-economys-grasp-f2472de.351e5

Writing 4- Matt Treon

People consumed by their phones at a café

Take a look at any adults screen time on their iPhone between the ages of 18-30. The number of hours you’ll find will be sickening. The large majority range from 5-14 hours per day! Technology has become an addiction so severe in our lives, yet many people still waste their leisure time away scrolling through pointless ego-focused social media BS. Some choose the entertainment route and spend their hours binging show after show all through the night. Others take the “capitalistic productivity” route, where their technology becomes part of them and their journey to work every ounce of happiness right out of their soul in search of “success”. Today’s technology has begun to stray from its intent as tools to facilitate our daily lives and has slowly become our lives. Odell points this out in her philosophy and explains how most technology is like diamonds in the “attention economy” of 2020. She is also quick to state that not all forms of technology are bad however. She mentions that “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). Clearly not all modern technology is creating self absorbed, attention hungry, and instant gratification searching people. Used correctly, Odell mentions how she couldn’t do most of her art without a computer or various other technological tools. She just acknowledges how consuming aspects of technology can be and how grave the need for quick attention satisfying material is becoming in many of todays youth.

Forwarding Odell’s point, I couldn’t agree more. As a member of the modern youth and consumer of technology, I first hand experience the frightening addiction I have to my phone. The constant flow of meaningless memes and media that I flood my brain with through Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok, has truly created an attention hungry cavity in my brain. I cannot go a few hours without autonomously reaching for my pocket to mindlessly scroll through social media. It’s so numbing and brainless and will reward the occasional chuckle. Quite honestly I have found myself walking up my stairs to lay in my bed and scroll almost against my will, like some magical force brought me there and it sometimes take tremendous will power to break its spell. Technology has an evil hold on me and as Odell warned it separates me and others further and further from true happiness. She acknowledges the grip that media society has on people and explains how this is a sign to rebel. Odell supports activism in terms of opposing big tech taking over all of our information and social media. She explains how we should reform against it and resist it from becoming the norm because it is not only terrible for mental wellbeing, but it is destroying the social interactivity that we used to have as people. I stand with her view on big tech because I myself have been directly affected by its mind-molding ability. My interactions with my friends and my overall youth experience has been so changed by social media and modern technology I couldn’t even guess where I would have landed without it. Who may or may not have become my friends, maybe I would have picked up different interests or passions. My life and time has been consumed by media and my thoughts and actions swayed by its formulas. It is time we stand up for the human race and restore society by limiting the amount of information these companies have access too. We need to restore social interactivity again, being able to walk up to someone and talk to them without it being awkward or out of place. Technology has made tremendous strides in a positive direction but we failed to see the drawbacks it would have on our youth that grows up with it is an “essential” part of their life.

This idea of social media and its effect on society has been studied over the past few years. As more information comes out from company transparency policies, whistleblowers, and retired information engineers from companies; we learn how truly corrupt the social media formula has become. Big tech companies such as apple, Facebook, twitter, and google use advanced programs to use information about your likes, hobbies, view time, and opinions to formulate a virtual society crafted specifically for you. Everything you see on a timeline or explore page is all skewed to be pleasurable by you. We all think of google as just a search bar but depending on your location and personal information it gathers about you through years of searches and likes, different things come up for searching the same thing. This idea of a virtual media bubble and corrupted societal conventions is best displayed in the recent 2020 documentary, The Social Dilemma. This Netflix documentary has been eye opening and I personally suggest everyone who reads this to go watch it. It compliments Odell’s views on technology perfectly and animates her idea of activism in the medium of a well crafted documentary. The documentary pulls dozens of ex-employees from these large companies and they sit down and explain, in expert detail, the problem that is current social media. These employees were VP’s of twitter, and information engineers for google and some of them quit solely for “ethical reasons”. They realized that what they were doing was not only wrong it was inhumane. The connections you see between The Social Dilemma and Odell is stunning. Its as if she was on the producing team herself. They focus on the negative side effects of social media in the youth, and how society itself has been tainted by big tech. One main idea they explain is how they essentially created ways for you to be influenced and swayed by media without even knowing it. Making people’s opinions obsolete because they were crafted based on pre-requisite information that was then formulated into media and fed to consumers for months or even years eventually shaping their opinions into what they are. The influence that technology has on todays people and especially the youth is becoming sickening as with the next 20 years, the children that grow up with tech for every waking second of their life will be no more than pre-determined symbiotes bought by big tech companies.

-Matt Treon

Social Media and Politics

Unlike the first chapter Odell expands her ideas and concepts beyond the self-care. She writes more about the technological, political, and economical. aspect of the world. As Odell mentions in chapter two there are significant impacts of technological development on human life and the development of societies. Technological development has brought more levels of well-being to humans in various educational, practical, and industrial. She explained that the technology. that there are many negatives of technology used and risks on the individual and society. She emphasizes that loss of dependency and freedom. Which means that the more individuals who depend on computers and different types of technology, the heavy reliance on technology they will be a weakness and makes them less independent and free. Which is totally true for example, when I was in Yemen, I did not use much technology, during that time I was living during time where I felt more independent and freer. However, when I moved to America and start reliant on technology, I realized that many of the choices I made are always influenced by social media and technology. Also, an Odell said during the political elections, social media played an important rule on convincing people to vote for specific political party.

 In addition to technology Odell talks more about politics and economical influence that it makes to individuals’ life. According to Odell, “Unfortunately, she concludes, “the hallmark of all such escapes is rule, that is, the notion that men can lawfully and politically live together only when some are entitled to command and the others forced to obey”(Chapter 2, beginning). Policies controls everything, thus the idea of just creating an environment in which a person is free it impossible. There is no place in the world today where people can go and life peacefully and free for many reasons and the biggest in politics. Odell says, “Politics necessarily exist between even two individuals with free will; any attempt to reduce politics to design (Thiel’s “machinery of freedom”) is also an attempt to reduce people to machines or mechanical beings. So, when Thiel writes of “new technologies that may create a new space for freedom,” I hear only an echo of Frazier: “Their behavior is determined, yet they’re free.” (Chapter 2 mid). Adding to Odell saying, political environment today will not leave those who want to be free from economical control and technology. They would do things such as killing them or forcing international laws that will cause problems to them. Politics want to keep people productive any busy is they leave these people alone that will encourage more people to do the same. Which is something the countries will not want their citizen to do. Additionally, Odell provide examples of philosophers who apply the idea of political freedom. Also, a previous experience of history where people movements of getting away from society and doing their own thing fail.  Odell points out at Robert Houriet talks when he spoke about the reasons that caused these communes to fail.

Odell also explains that although we all want to be free of social media and economical influence we cannot escape. We can take a break for couple of days, but we cannot escape forever. Odell states, “Given the current reality of my digital environment, distance for me usually means things like going on a walk or even a trip, staying off the Internet, or trying not to read the news for a while. But the problem is this: I can’t stay out there forever, neither physically nor mentally. As much as I might want to live in the woods where my phone doesn’t work, or shun newspapers with Michael Weiss at his cabin in the Catskills, or devote my life to contemplating potatoes in Epicurus’s garden, total renunciation would be a mistake. The story of the communes teaches me that there is no escaping the political fabric of the world (unless you’re Peter Thiel, in which case there’s always outer space). The world needs my participation more than ever. Again, it is not a question of whether, but how.” (chapter 2, ending). This really important paragraph in which Odell talk about activism. She tells the reading that we have to come back to the digital world help make an impact. Do we  can to make an impact and the first thing we should do it changing ourselves first.

Forwarding Jenny Odell’s Writing on “How to Do Nothing” – Writing Assignment #4

In Jenny Odell’s book, “How to Do Nothing”, Odell presents her argument for our individual need to engage in more personal pursuits of enjoyment while stressing less about being consumed by capitalist productivity.  She cites many examples of ways in which others have become more intensely aware of their need for “doing nothing.”  “Doing nothing” according to Odell, is her way of saying that our society needs to re-think how we live our lives in a capitalist world that makes us believe we must be constantly productive in order to be successful in our working lives.  However, as she exemplifies in her book, we need to balance being productive in our capitalist society by also fulfilling our personal need to be free to enjoy time to pursue pleasurable activities and even to just escape for a while from the demands on our lives by refusing to get caught up in society’s pressure to be productive in the working world or consumed with modern technology as a means of attaining value and success.

I would like to expand upon Odell’s commentary in her book on how modern technology interferes with our individual pursuit of self-fulfillment and personal enjoyment by “doing nothing.”  Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, are used by most of us in our frequent use of computers and smartphones.  The primary purpose of these sites is to allow us to communicate and connect socially in a more expedient and almost immediate manner.   Of course, this is a positive benefit in utilizing these sites.  However, there can also be a negative aspect such use.    According to an online article, “Addicted to Social Media?” in Psychology Today, Mark D. Griffiths, Ph.D., writes that overuse of social media can have detrimental mental health effects on its users, primarily young people who are the majority of social media users, since they generally have more technological expertise and prefer more instantaneous access to information.

In 2011, Dr. Griffiths collaborated with Dr. Daria Kuss to “review the scientific literature on excessive social media use.”  They documented detrimental effects on a small group of people, such as negative experiences in their personal relationships and educational achievements.  Dr. Griffiths and Dr. Kuss concluded that “such signs are indicative of addiction.”

In the past few years, additional studies related to addiction to social media sites have shown that spending too much time on social media sites can have a negative impact on our mental health.  In addition, social media use in a minority of users may contribute to many different types of psychological issues, such as anxiety, depression, and ADHD.  In particular, the connection between social media being accessed through smartphones leads to increased instances of (FOMO) – the “fear of missing out.”

When an individual’s social media use becomes a habit, such use can result in personal problems in his or her daily life, and more importantly, become dangerous, i.e., texting while driving.  Although, also according to Dr. Griffiths, “very few people are genuinely addicted to social media”, although frequently we may see that there are instances where a person may be dining out with a friend or family member and instead of engaging in face-to-face communication, the person becomes engrossed in checking out their smartphones.

If a person feels they might be addicted to social media, or even if you are just an habitual user, Dr. Griffiths recommends the use of “digital detox” strategies that will help instruct you how to reduce the amount of time you spend on social media.  These strategies include turning off notifications on your smartphone and checking your incoming messages on your social media sites less often.  Dr. Griffiths also recommends turning off your smartphone at night while you sleep or removing your phone from your room.  In addition, he notes that the utilization of cognitive behavioral therapy in online addictions may be the most successful treatment.

There is no question that being productive in the working world is necessary to earn a living wage to provide for ourselves and our families.  But being consumed with modern technology in the attention economy as a means of obtaining value and success in the world may consequently lead to negative mental health problems as well as taking away important personal time we all need to decompress and become rejuvenated in our hectic, chaotic world. 

Kuss, D.J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2011), ‘Online social networking addiction:  A literature review of empirical research.’  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, accessed 13 September 2020, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/201805/addicted-social-media.