The PowerPoint Era: A New Gilded Age?

Ian Parker’s article “Absolute PowerPoint”, featured in the May 28,2001 issue of The New Yorker, criticizes the increasing prevalence of using PowerPoint as a standard method of teaching in the academic and business environment. A few years before Tufte’s proclamation that “PowerPoint is Evil”, Parker warns against PowerPoint’s usurpation of traditional communication and points to its oversimplication of information and inherent commercialism.

Both authors write that due to the visual aesthetics of the medium, the information included on a PowerPoint slide must be condensed to fit onto the slide in a punchy and concise manner. Many subtle details necessary for a thorough grasp of the concept are left out in favor of 20 word bold print summaries. Some firms, Parker writes, have adopted policies as to how many bullets are allowed per slide, and how many words per bullet. While these companies may believe that these condensed slides are more managable for their audiences and speaker alike, Tufte sees this “convenience” as a more insiduous “[elevation] of format over content [...]“.  The emphasis is shifted from the actual message to how effectively the message is visually portrayed. Hence, each PowerPoint presentation becomes a sales pitch that attempts to establish its authority through appealing graphics and a clean layout. Who cares if the numbers on the graph are wrong, so long as the graph looks shiny and professional?

The climate of commercialism which PowerPoint inculcates is perceived by Parker to be yet another feature of the growing social isolation created by technology: In darkened rooms at industrial plants and ad agencies, at sales pitches and conferences, this is how people are communicating: no paragraphs, no pronouns-the world condensed into a few upbeat slides, with seven or so words on a line, seven or so lines on a slide. And now it’s happening during sermons and university lectures and family arguments, too [...] Instead of human contact, we are given human display. “

 It’s difficult to argue with Tufte and Parker. PowerPoints are seductively clever and deceptively manipulative. It’s hard to argue with the authority of the PowerPoint slide– it’s written oh-so-boldly and succintly, it must be true– and thus eliminates the engaging of dialogue between the presenter and their audience. Students simply copy the bullets verbatim into their notes, an act which could be have been done just as easily at home. Why pay to attend a lecture when you could download the PowerPoint presentation instead? I have noticed professors that just read their slides aloud, not elaborating upon the bullet points but rather going through their presentation in class. It often feels like not only a waste of time, but a waste of resources. If my professor has a wealth of knowledge about 18th century English literature, I want to know the more in-depth nuances of the subject, you know, the stuff I can’t download on SparkNotes. (Not to mention, PowerPoint lacks all of the charm and humor of an engaging professor)

I truly believe that while PowerPoint operates under the pretense of convenience and efficiency , it is essentially a marketing tool that caters to our increasingly attention-deficient, communication-phobic society. I will grudgingly concede that an application can rarely merit the term “evil”, unless it perhaps featured pictures of people killing dogs and bunnies.  People, and their reductionistic, lazy impulses, are what makes PowerPoint such an ineffective tool for learning. Feasibly, PowerPoint could help stimulate the audience’s memory by imparting visual cues along with concise data; it could make note-taking easier for those students who never venture from the back row. And the idea of selling an idea through simple, easily digestible terms is hardly a new idea: Thomas Paine persuaded many colonists to support the American Revolution through his easy to read philosophical pamphlet ”Common Sense”. While history shows that Paine was on the right side, centuries later we are still in danger of being seduced by complex ideological issues packaged in oversimplified rhetoric.

Perhaps Tufte’s article should read “PowerPoint is Potentially Evil” and Parker’s “Absolute PowerPoint” could be changed to “Absolute PowerPoint (Corrupts Absolutely Sometimes)”.

Parker, Ian. “Absolute PowerPoint”. The New Yorker. 28 May, 2001. Rpt. in http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/group/powerpt.html 

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