What would change in your life if you took away your screens for seven weeks?
In his new book, “Reconnected: How 7 Screen-Free Weeks with Monks and Amish Farmers Helped Me Recover the Lost Art of Being Human,” author Carlos Whittaker shares his journey of how seven weeks of disconnecting from screens reconnected him to the earth, to other people and perhaps most importantly, to God.
In a world of hyperconnectivity – a constant stream of notifications, updates on friends and family, news, celebrity gossip, and advertisements – Whittaker recognized something was missing from his life. Realizing this hyperconnectivity feels like disconnection, he embarked on an experiment that would separate him and his screens for seven weeks.
Trying to understand better what screens were doing to his head, hands and heart, Whittaker spent the first two weeks with Benedictine monks at Saint Andrew’s Abbey in the high desert of California, followed by two more weeks in Mount Hope, Ohio, with a group of Amish farmers. He wrapped up his experiment with three weeks of screen-free time at home with this family.
To prove his experiment beyond subjective reports, he traveled to Los Angeles, allowing his brain to be scanned before and after the drastic reduction in screen time. His experiences and brain scan results are documented in his new book.
Were we made for so much screen time? Were our souls, bodies and minds made for the amount of information the average person consumes daily? Whittaker hypothesizes that although it seems like God is silent today, perhaps the busyness and constant distractions in life keep us from recognizing him.
Whittaker, who makes his living as an Instagrammer, podcaster and content creator, writes that his screen-free experiment forced him to stop “doing” and start “being.”
“Speaking of beauty and simplicity, let me take you into the beauty and simplicity of a typical tech-free day at the abbey. Every day there seemed designed to draw me into what I was actually created for: simply being,” he wrote.
Associations between screen time and poor health outcomes, such as obesity and lack of exercise, have been well-documented. Anxiety, exhaustion, physical inactivity and depression among both children and adults are reported, with many studies finding significant associations between screen time and a decrease in overall well-being.
“Reconnected” is an easy, thought-providing read that not only gives Whittaker’s personal account of his transformation, body, mind and spirit, throughout his seven weeks of screen-free living but also gives readers easy, practical steps to learn to balance their screen use to reconnect in every area of their lives.
Eliana Tedrow is a freelance writer for the Sooner Catholic.