Information design guru Edward Tufte articulates what we’ve all come to know is true: “PowerPoint Is Evil: Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely.” An excerpt:
Particularly disturbing is the adoption of the PowerPoint cognitive style in our schools. Rather than learning to write a report using sentences, children are being taught how to formulate client pitches and infomercials. Elementary school PowerPoint exercises (as seen in teacher guides and in student work posted on the Internet) typically consist of 10 to 20 words and a piece of clip art on each slide in a presentation of three to six slides—a total of perhaps 80 words (15 seconds of silent reading) for a week of work. Students would be better off if the schools simply closed down on those days and everyone went to the Exploratorium or wrote an illustrated essay explaining something.
Indeed. Now I’m picturing Linus using a PowerPoint presentation to explain to Charlie Brown the meaning of Christmas. Ha. (Link via Arts & Letters Daily.)
P.S. Can’t you just see “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” updated for the PowerPoint generation? How boring…
PowerPoint corrupts? Absolutely!
(Ha! Get it?) Seriously. I am sick to death of faux presentations where PowerPoints are merely a way of projecting odd bits of the presenter’s psyche that we don’t need (or want). And don’t get me started on the animation swooshes. Ick.