How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

What do we need, and what do we only reach for out of habit? What exhausts, and what nourishes?

Social environments on the internet provide a bountiful — and sometimes incongruous — bundle: conversation, riffing, jokes and shitposts, entertainment, learning, distraction, inspiration, meeting interesting people.

It's a beautiful bundle, to be sure! It... See more

But this isn’t just about seeking exit from the turmoil of a modern, connected existence, nor is it merely about recharging our batteries so that we can absorb yet more political polarisation, toxic social media or climate catastrophe. It is also about engaging in a social policy of degrowth as a corrective to practices that are taxing the planet, ... See more

Maybe it is possible to bring the spirit of such silences to bear on exchanges that unfold on social media, but it seems that we are then working against the grain of the medium, seeking a fullness of experience in the absence of the materiality that sustains it. But perhaps that is all that we can do. To remember, in its absence, the silence that ... See more