PowerPoint Makes You Dumb - NYT

[Wonk]

(snip)

PowerPoint is the world's most popular tool for presenting information. There are 400 million copies in circulation, and almost no corporate decision takes place without it. But what if PowerPoint is actually making us stupider?

This year, Edward Tufte -- the famous theorist of information presentation -- made precisely that argument in a blistering screed called The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint. In his slim 28-page pamphlet, Tufte claimed that Microsoft's ubiquitous software forces people to mutilate data beyond comprehension. For example, the low resolution of a PowerPoint slide means that it usually contains only about 40 words, or barely eight seconds of reading. PowerPoint also encourages users to rely on bulleted lists, a ''faux analytical'' technique, Tufte wrote, that dodges the speaker's responsibility to tie his information together. And perhaps worst of all is how PowerPoint renders charts. Charts in newspapers like The Wall Street Journal contain up to 120 elements on average, allowing readers to compare large groupings of data. But, as Tufte found, PowerPoint users typically produce charts with only 12 elements. Ultimately, Tufte concluded, PowerPoint is infused with ''an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.''

Microsoft officials, of course, beg to differ. Simon Marks, the product manager for PowerPoint, counters that Tufte is a fan of ''information density,'' shoving tons of data at an audience. You could do that with PowerPoint, he says, but it's a matter of choice. ''If people were told they were going to have to sit through an incredibly dense presentation,'' he adds, ''they wouldn't want it.'' And PowerPoint still has fans in the highest corridors of power: Colin Powell used a slideware presentation in February when he made his case to the United Nations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Of course, given that the weapons still haven't been found, maybe Tufte is onto something. Perhaps PowerPoint is uniquely suited to our modern age of obfuscation -- where manipulating facts is as important as presenting them clearly. If you have nothing to say, maybe you need just the right tool to help you not say it.

more...

[La_Serpiente]

1. It's not PowerPoint that makes you dumb

it is the presenter and how he/she relays the information.

[Bill McBlueState]

3. you have a point..

Someone who naturally gives a good talk will make Powerpoint work to his or her advantage.

What I would say is, Powerpoint makes it easy for someone who can't give a good presentation to slop something together that looks good, but isn't particularly informative. It takes the focus off the substance of the talk, which is bad news for students who are still learning to give a good presentaion.

[Bill McBlueState]

2. I am *so* glad other people think so, too.

I've had graduate astronomy courses taught with powerpoint slides, and others without. I learned *so much more* in the old-fashioned write-on-the-board lectures.

It's true that with powerpoint, everything gets turned into a bulleted list, whether the logic flows that way or not. You never see anything derived in detail in that type of course or presentation. And people have this nasty tendency to make each bulleted point a complete sentence, then just read that off the projection.

I can't say much about the business world, but powerpoint presentations, especially ones with a lot of extra animated crap, are having a negative impact on the academic sciences.

[phaseolus]

4. To reply to Microsoft's Simon Marks....

'Density of information' does NOT imply that a presentation is going to
be dense. Take any one of the Pollkatz graphs... like this one --

There is a LOT of information there, but it's presented in such a way
that you can understand lots of different concepts AT A GLANCE. I dare
say it's a graph that Tufte would approve of.

I've been a huge Tufte fan for years, so maybe I'm biased.

[On the Road]

8. Yes, Phaseolus --

that is a great example of presenting dense information in a clear and simple format. Tufte would definitely approve.

And to change the subject a little, I believe one reason DU has been successful it its layout -- dense, inviting, and friendly at the same time. I don't think it's a coincidence Tufte was one of Skinner's college professors.

[GAspnes]

5. 7 +/- 2

Tufte is a genius. But most people, in most organizations, are not.

He's right, of course. We need to get smarter. M$ is designing software to make us stupider.

How about this?

[treepig]

6. sure, he might have a point

but until he gets off his high horse and stops writing those damn elitish 28-page pamphlets and summarizes his ideas in a succinct, nicely-bulleted, manner -i really don't have a clue what he's trying to say!

[Piltdown13]

7. I'm probably biased, but

PowerPoint has been a lifesaver for me when I've taught an introductory human origins and prehistory class. Fact is, in order to teach this subject, you do have to occasionally present what essentially amount to lists (of fossils, of species, of sites, etc. -- this is stuff most college freshmen have never even heard of), and PowerPoint is great for highlighting the most important ones (so I can then tell my students which sections of their notes and readings will be the most important, backed up by seeing it on the screen).

Even better, I use a LOT of illustrations in my class, and PowerPoint enables me to show as many pictures of fossils, of artifacts, of sites, as I want, complete with little arrows highlighting the most important features of each; I can even put together illustrations comparing items much more easily than would be possible with regular slides. I daresay my students wouldn't have seen half as many photos as they have if I'd had to pay for slides to be made for each picture (hey, I'm still a grad student, and the university doesn't provide a budget for that sort of thing).

Of course, I do see where over-reliance on PowerPoint could be a problem. I try to *never* put complete sentences on slides, just key words that get filled in as I talk. My goal is to give people a quick idea of the key points for the next couple of minutes, so they can then pay more attention to the details.

On edit -- I would also suggest, in reference to one of the points in the quoted material from the article, that perhaps a comparison between graphics in the WSJ and graphics for projection on a screen is not one we want to be making. Even using traditional slides, I notice that students' eyes glaze over when you throw an overly complicated graphic on the screen. IMHO, many of the more complicated, 120-plus elements graphics are put to better use in handouts and/or publications, where people can take their time to interpret them. Put too complicated of a graphic in a podium presentation or lecture (without making the analysis of that graphic an explicit focus in your talk) and you risk having your audience either ignore the graphic *or* tune out what you're actually saying as they puzzle over it. (Not to mention that the more complicated graphics tend to have elements that are so small that people in the back rows can't make them out.)

None of this, however, takes away from the point made by another poster, that PowerPoint can have the tendency, in the wrong hands, to turn every argument into a bulleted list. I agree, there are theories and arguments which are too complex to be treated in that fashion. The trick is getting presenters and professors to learn the difference between that which can be enhanced through PowerPoint and that which will be harmed by such treatment.

Editing again -- OK, one more point relating to the quote and then I'll stop. What's with this criticism of the typical PowerPoint slide as having "only about 8 seconds" of reading on it? Maybe I'm missing something, but I thought the point of oral presentations was to have your audience actually LISTEN to what you're saying, not to present them with a blow-by-blow text to read from the screen -- heck, that's been my biggest hurdle as my presentations evolve, cutting down the amount of text so that the focus is on the lecture rather than reading the slides. I can see his point if he's arguing that the effect is that the only content then presented is those 8 seconds per slide; that would indeed be a dumbing-down type of problem. But everyone I've talked to regarding giving presentations has said that you want to keep the focus on what you're saying, away from the screen except when you're referring to it. OK, I'll shut up now. :-)

[Ediacara]

9. I'm with you here

Whenever I give presentations, powerpoint is a lifesaver because I can cheaply (as in free) add in hundreds of images into a presentation without having to go to the incredible trouble of creating photo slides.

And I agree with a previous poster, the powerpoint presentation is only as good as the person that creates and presents it.

[Sufi Marmot]

10. The Powerpoint Anthology of Literature...

Great books per Powerpoint

-SM, guilty Powerpoint user

[Pale Blue Dot]

12. That is hilarious!

I have a new understanding of Hamlet.

[fedsron2us]

11. Power-Point is an instrument of torture

It should be outlawed under the Geneva convention. The product is designed to allow corporate bores to inflict presentations of mind numbing tedium upon their hapless staff. During these endless slide shows it is not unusual for people to lose the will to live. I usually end up entreating the Almighty to break the Power Point projector. Occasionally, these prayers are answered. I can then enjoy the sight of the enemy literally running out of bullets.