The world is changing constantly at an alarming rate particularly with the technology and information segment. Jolt! by Phil Cooke is a book that helps a person maneuver in a ever changing environment.
I was blown away by some of the statistics sited in the book:
- 65% of North Americans spend more time with their computer than their spouse.
- E-mail is addictive in the same way slot machines have been shown to be addictive.
- In 2009, it’s been estimated, the average corporate worker spent more than 40% of his/her day sending or receiving some 200 e-mail messages.
- Information overload is a $650 billion drag on our economy each year.
- In a world home to 6 billion people, roughly 600 million e-mails are sent every 10 minutes.
- 77% of workers report that e-mail downtime causes major stress at work, with 10 percent actually assaulting their computer.
In relation to social media the following statistics were cited:
- In 2010, Generation Y outnumbered Baby Boomers… 96% of them have already joined a social network.
- One out of eight couples married in the United States in the last year met via social media.
- If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest.
- A 2009 US Department of Education Study revealed that, on average online students outperformed those receiving face-to-face instruction.
- One in six higher education students is enrolled in online curriculum.
- The fastest-growing segment on Facebook is 55-to-65-year-old females.
- There are more than 200,000,000 blogs –increasing daily and 54 percent of bloggers post content or tweet daily. Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth becomes world of mouth.
- 25% of Americans in the past mouth said they watched a short video… on their phone.
- In the near future we will no longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media.
JOLT, is a book that helps us deal with these radical changes in our culture and in our loves. Phil Cooke points out two different types of extreme people. (1) the person that doesn’t want anything to do with technology and (2) the person that goes overboard on technology. Cooke suggests a third option, “I believe it’s possible to navigate the cultural shift without losing your soul.”
I like the book because it’s divided up into easy to read chapters that deal with life management in general. The content wasn’t necessarily new, but it was written in such a way that was refreshing. The individual chapters deal with such things as vision and planning as well as how to live your life in such a way that you make the greatest impact. It wasn’t necessarily a hard read. I found that most of the chapters could be read in several minutes and found many illustrations that I filed away for later use in my ministry as a pastor.
I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.