How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

Odell criticizes social media for its harmful effects on people. She notes that even in terms of helping to organize political action, one area for which it’s gotten some praise, it’s ultimately lacking. Is that a fair assessment? What about its role in movements like the Arab Spring? Use that or another example to critique the pros and cons of social media in this respect and explain why you think overall that it either falls flat or is an effective tool for activism.

Withdrawing from society altogether is something the author rejects because of the tendency for such experiments to swap out politics for design, effectively removing individual agency. Is that the case in every instance? Have there been no utopian movements that retained politics in which everyone could participate? What about Amish communities or the Utopian Socialists of the 19th century? Pick three such communities (from different traditions or movements) and analyze their structure in terms of the level of internal political participation.

Using either your hometown or current place of residence (if they are different), compare a present-day map to an older one (from at least several decades ago). Follow the same procedure that Odell does in Chapter 4 with her hometown of Cupertino to provide an analysis of the city or town’s growth.