Does PowerPoint make us stupid? -- using actor-network theory

I had come across few times before on pieces describing the potential of PowerPoint to dumb-down people's way of thinking. The same is suggested in the following CNN article Does PowerPoint make us stupid?.

That technology affects social structures and other social phenomena (personal and/or at the levels of society) is widely acknowledged, and perhaps is hard to argue otherwise. These effects are not necessarily negative or positive. The effects depend on the context, i.e. the contextual imbedness of the technology within the social structures. (more about social constructionism vs. technological determinism)

Does PowerPoint (as a technology) have the same capability? Surely. However, to what extend is it able to effect individual’s way of thinking as far as presentation of information and facts are concerned? Just because it affects an individual it does not mean it has an affect on all faculties of reasoning and thinking of that individual. It can be argued that it does, however, one needs to be cautious not to jump to quick conclusions without the proper research and deeper understanding of the situation.

Like any other technology, PowerPoint tries to simplify 'things'. In the process of simplification the complexity of the context (including the content and the social structures) is usually 'relaxed' and many details are lost. I would argue that this is rather an unfortunate situation because each simplification chips little by little out of the reality which is not necessarily simple. Thus, as a result many complex phenomena are simplified to a great extent, up to a point where a new phenomenon is 'born' because the simplification really dumbed the complex phenomenon to an unrecognizable one.

Whether the above reasoning is true for PowerPoint's ability to dumb us down is another matter. If it is true, I would suggest that the context is also responsible and not PowerPoint alone. Nevertheless, it is important to understand the scope as to how wide is this even practically possible. Theoretically one can argue that an element in a socio-technological context can have extensive effect in terms of time and space/distance. Practically, it should be analyzed whether the element, PowerPoint in this case, is first and foremost able to effect the individual beyond the presentation mode thinking, or does it also effect individual's other intellectual faculties. (more on Actor-Network Theory and Managing Knowledge)

Maybe it is the immediate relevant context (organization, corporation, society, etc) that has been dumbed-down enough that simple presentation tools like PowerPoint suffice? Or is it PowerPoint? I would think it is both to some extend: complex thoughts, ideas, and solutions are hard to present in their complexity in the expected 30-45 minutes timeframe usually allocated for presentation to managers. That is why we have journal articles and research papers.