Tweets may help improve conference presentations

Social media platforms like Twitter can help improve quality of presentations as speakers receive real-time feedback, says a study.

Social media platforms like Twitter can help improve quality of presentations as speakers receive real-time feedback, says a study.

'The quality of presentations should hopefully improve as presenters are forced to concentrate on their key messages more and respond to the real time feedback they are now receiving,' said Damian Roland, honorary senior lecturer at University of Leicester in Britain.

But the researchers have found that some presenters may also find the tweets disturbing.

The study of tweets from a medical conference found that the majority of tweets were accurate - but some were not and misrepresented what the speaker had said.

Indeed, in isolation, they could be seen to harm the speaker's reputation.

'The majority (of tweets) were deemed to be reflective of the message the presenter was trying to get across. A small number were found not to represent the presenter's views,' Roland said.

'I have heard presenters say please don't take pictures in the past - could this soon be followed by please don't tweet?,' Roland said.

The study was published in the journal Emergency Medicine.