Thank you for being part of the conversation.  This is Play It Forward.  Real people.  Real stories.  The struggle to Play It Forward.  Episode 639 with Carlos Whittaker the author of the book Reconnected. In a world dominated by screens and technology, Carlos Whittaker takes readers on an extraordinary journey of self-discovery and reconnection. The book chronicles his seven-week experience of unplugging from the digital noise, completely screen free.   Over the course of the seven weeks, Carlos spent time with 20 Benedictine monks in the high desert of Southern California in 23 hours a day of silence, lived on an Amish sheep farm, working the land, and sheering sheep, and learned how to exist with his family and truly connect with them completely unplugged. On top of that, he even had his brain scanned by a neuroscientist before and after the experiment to see what changed - and the results were quite staggering.   Not many people have the opportunity to spend weeks entirely devoid of phone and computer screens, but Carlos' radical, screen-free experiment yields hope and wisdom to everyone who has felt the loneliness, low-key despair, and paradoxical disconnectedness that accompanies the always-on, always-plugged-in nature of modern life. Now bringing his message to the masses, he's eager to share some of the lessons he learned along the way.