Having worked at a writing-based company, any time I have to sit through a PowerPoint is now painful: Do I ask a question about the topic I care about now? Will

Having worked at a writing-based company, any time I have to sit through a PowerPoint is now painful: Do I ask a question about the topic I care about now? Will we get to that topic later, and the speaker is just providing needed background context? Or is the thing I really care about sandwiched in at the end? Should I tell the speaker that we already know about all the stuff he's talking about now? On this next slide, should I tell the speaker that all the thing he just said are "basics," I've never heard of? Having a document to read gives the time to read faster through things that don't require as much attention, and read slower through things that require more attention, and maybe even stop and google things that you don't know so you have needed background.