"How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy" by Jenny Odell

What this book is not: how to back away from the feeling that you always have to be getting something accomplished, how to meditate, or how to lie in a hammock without purpose (without reading, without intentionally napping, without worrying about all the things you should be doing instead). I'm pretty sure Sam thought this was what he was getting when he bought this book for me, and it's certainly what I expected. 

What this book is: a treatise for being aware of "nothing" activities of little value (mainly, social media and other ways to kill time that involve scrolling on your phone) and increasing your "nothing" activities of high value (like bird-watching and enjoying nature) which give your brain the gift of time for rumination. 

I do feel like the "How To" part of the title is a bit misleading, though I see that it sounds better and probably sells more copies than "Why You Should" would have. It's interesting reading, and it got me thinking about why we are better off contemplating more deeply rather than constantly reacting to a barrage of falsely equivalent and out-of-context information. This is not something I was previously unaware of, but it is something I had never addressed in this level of detail.