US Army: “PowerPoint dulls us”

    The senior management of NATO and the U.S. Army is extremely concerned about the excessive use of PowerPoint presentations at strategic planning and military operations meetings. According to some generals, presentations in the form of slides not only simplify reality, but make such a simplified approach familiar to the perception that negatively affects decision-making, NY Times writes . “PowerPoint makes us dumb,” said Marine Corps General James N. Mattis bluntly, speaking a few days ago at a military conference in North Carolina. He is not alone in his opinion.

    “PowerPoint is dangerous because it creates the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” said General McMaster, who is known for banning the use of PowerPoint presentations during the successful operation to defend the Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005.

    However, the US Army’s dependence on presentations is only increasing, and they are already present in about half of the meetings. The junior officers at headquarters are already customarily called “PowerPoint Rangers,” writes the NY Times, because they are engaged in only one task: preparing presentations for their command.

    This is not an exaggeration: even during the conduct of hostilities, some officers do nothing but prepare presentations. It is their responsibility to collect all information important to superiors, photos, facts, figures, statistics, and drive it into PowerPoint. They do nothing more. This was told by Lieutenant Sam Nuxoll (Sam Nuxoll) in an interview with the military website Company Command , his quote is given here .

    Last fall, when President Obama convened a meeting on the Afghanistan War, he was even shown a PowerPoint presentation.

    Critics from among military officers say that PowerPoint can somehow be used normally only to show maps and diagrams. Otherwise, even a 30-page presentation contains less information than a 5-page text, not to mention the fact that a full and in-depth analysis of the situation can be carried out in the text, and in graphic form it is simply impossible: it turns out something completely unsuitable for perception .

    If you try to reflect objective reality with PowerPoint, it turns out even worse. When last summer, General Stanley A. McChrystal, the leader of the NATO group in Afghanistan, saw this PowerPoint chart that shows all aspects of the American strategy in Afghanistan, he said: "When we understand this slide, we will win the war."



    PowerPoint presentations are well-suited for just one task, and army officers agree. For press conferences. A typical military press conference lasts 25 minutes, with just 5 minutes to answer questions. The rest of the time is occupied by the presentation, which in the army is called “chick hypnosis,” writes the NY Times.

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