Redirecting attention can break the cycle between captive attention and economic insecurity

Evidence

Thinking about what it takes to afford refusal, I suggest that learning to redirect and enlarge our attention may be the place to pry open the endless cycle between frightened, captive attention and economic insecurity. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 37

Categorization

• DEFINE: One of the three redirections, and the causal core: attention work opens the refusal pathway.
• QUESTION: How does training attention actually lower the personal cost of refusal, causally? The mechanism is asserted, not yet shown.
• XREF: connects to: Attention-economy distractions accumulate to erode autonomy and selfhood — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 403; Attention scarcity can be turned into an asset through redistributed attention — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 337
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Attention-economy distractions accumulate to erode autonomy and selfhood — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 403; Attention scarcity can be turned into an asset through redistributed attention — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 337