After completing the readings for today’s class, I couldn’t help but focus my attention on the piece published by Edward Tufte, and the issues he raises with Microsoft PowerPoint.

The issues that Tufte raises with PowerPoint and the underlying “need for presentations” was a bit misguided and seemed out of touch with the way information moves today. Following the internet bubble and technological advancements made in the early 2000s, information now moves faster than ever, and as a result, this has also changed the way people process information. Articles have become shorter, and more likely than not, people will commit time to take a deep dive into a subject they are not particularly passionate about. Instead, they are interested in major headlines and how information fits into “the big picture.”

To me, presentations are just that – a way for people to show macro level cause and effect, with the help of certain key statistics/figures where necessary. Turning our attention to PowerPoint, it shouldn’t come as a shock that the program is at the forefront of presentation software, and for many students, it will be the first program they use to create presentations. In this day and age, a vast majority of students will be asked to use PowerPoint, for better or worse.

The shortcomings Tufte describes result when students take shortcuts and fail to thoroughly interpret the information they are presenting. Failing to do due diligence on a topic can lead the audience to lose confidence in the speaker and the content being presented. Moreover, if a student simply reads information from a slide they created, then they add no value to the presentation – the audience can read all that’s written on a slide. These are two of the many things that I’ve been repeatedly told not to do when using PowerPoint, and I think it’s important to raise and address usage issues like these, rather than question the software and need for presentations altogether.