In our networked age of infobesity, the scarcity and low quality of our attention is ruining our health, relationships, communities and the planet, argues Odell. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. In an article entitled Designing Organizations for an information-rich world, he and his co-authors wrote prophetically that “ in an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else. The phrase attention economy was coined by economist and psychologist Herbert A Simon in the 1970s. Her message feels even more relevant and necessary after years of Covid-related attention-destroying transformations.

In a beautiful book published right before the start of the pandemic, artist and Stanford professor Jenny Odell questions “what we perceive as productive.” How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy (2019) makes the case for redirecting our attention as an act of resistance and a way to live a more meaningful life. What if the main problem was the fact that the attention economy has swallowed us whole? What if the solution was to start resisting it? Their satisfaction levels closely follow the downward curve of their mental health. Employees are resigning in droves in search of better opportunities. In 2022 burnout rates among workers are at unprecedented levels.

To say that workers are more exhausted than ever from spending their lives in front of screens would be an understatement.

How to do nothing attention economy