4 ms·

Have we become too reliant on GPS?

23 points by mathattack 11y ago

ajford 11y ago
So I recently encountered this. I used to think I was ok at navigating, but whenever I got into an unfamiliar area, I had a hard time navigating using maps and street signs. But I have lived in Puerto Rico for 2.5 years now. Cell coverage and speed is very hit or miss, and the mountains and valleys make GPS and connected maps very unreliable. After 2 years here, I went from getting lost or turned around frequently to being able to navigate most of the island without my phone. And I feel like my sense of direction has improved significantly.
aylons 11y ago
This article conflates digital map and GPS shamelessly, making the argument very confusing. First, even if I rely on GPS for turn by turn navigation, I still use the map to see the route and specially to locate myself when in a new area. Sometimes I look for a place to eat nearby and them I make the route just by looking at the map: walking is often a matter of choosing nicer streets, which the Google Maps route does not do well. On the other hand, driving around always make me distant from the place I'm at. With or without turn by turn navigation. Without it, I just look at the map and make a route beforehand, never seeing anything around me in between - too worried on navigating for that,even if I am not the driver. People traveling long distances by error was not unheard of before GPS. It was just less of a news item. Quite on the contrary, I bet they are less frequent today. Also, a good share of the population always had problems reading maps. I guess they are the ones that depend the most on GPS.
- jinushaun 11y ago
  That was the problem with Apple Maps. The digital map was awful, but the GPS directions were actually good.
Trisell 11y ago
I grew up in the rural Pacific Northwest, hunting and fishing, and I was taught land navigation via compass and topo map. I still enjoy using these tools to hike cross country, and even for following main trails. But it boggles my mind how many people I see out in the deep woods, with only a gps or phone as their only navigation aid. Electronics fail, my map and compass have never failed me.
- mikestew 11y ago
  Electronics fail, my map and compass have never failed me. Fail? Shit, for hiking scenarios they just plain don't work half the time due to terrain and tree cover. Dedicated GPS units seem to have improved a lot, but there's no way I'd rely on a phone for guidance. I, too, grew up on compass and topo map. My primary "good way to get lost" activity is trail running, and I always carry a paper map. It might just be the trail map from the trailhead, but at least it's something that doesn't rely on batteries or an outside entity keeping their systems up. So, yeah, perhaps "we" are too reliant if it has people wandering off into the woods with nothing but a cell phone. OTOH, those same folks probably would just wandered off with nothing but a hardy "I have a good sense of direction" if they didn't have a GPS.
buckhx 11y ago
I'm surprised they didn't make any mention of GPS spoofing, that's much scarier to me than jamming and is becoming easier and cheaper every year.
sharkweek 11y ago
One of my best friends is a firefighter, about 30 years old, but started a few years ago in his mid-20s. During his training, the captain would take him out on training rides and absolutely berate his lack of knowledge of local streets of both the city in which they worked and in the other local cities that they were most commonly called to. This went on for months at a time until he could recite entire city maps nearly by heart. He complained a lot at first about why they didn't predominantly use GPS, thinking "get with the times, folks" but in his blossoming career, he says it's pretty nice taking the rig out and just, with second nature, knowing where to go. This also comforts me as a citizen of the city, knowing they don't rely on a technology that could fail in critical moments to get to where they need to serve.
pimlottc 11y ago
The truth is that navigation apps are not really designed to give you a larger sense of your route but rather just what you need to do to get to the next turn. Partially this is due to the relatively small size of smartphone screens but it is often actually actively difficult to zoom out or scroll ahead while in navigation mode. It's so focused on the details that you miss the big picture. What if you made a different kind of navigation app, one that was designed to help you learn the streets as your travel? It could teach your about the main freeways and arterial roads. It could monitor your driving and give you points when you successfully reach your destination without turn-by-turn "hints" (though it would be ready to help you out if you got too off-course). Granted, I'm not sure how big a market there would be for kind of app, but I'd love to try it. I think it'd be an interested experiment at the very least.
SubZero 11y ago
The article also places a big emphasis on people driving to the incorrect locations, hundreds of miles away from their intended destination. To me, this is a user error rather than a system issue. Every GPS system has the user confirm their destination address to keep this from happening.
mikeash 11y ago
Are we too reliant on GPS? I don't think so. There's Galileo and GLONASS, after all. Your smartphone probably already supports GLONASS, and I imagine we'll see widespread Galileo support once the constellation is more complete. Are we too reliant on turn by turn directions? Maybe. On the other hand, stupid failures like the ones mentioned in the article are pretty rare. That's pretty much by definition, otherwise they wouldn't have made the news in the first place. Are we losing navigational skills? Maybe. But what the article discusses isn't a lack of navigational skills, it's a simple unwillingness to use them. I'm sure that Syrian truck driver didn't go off course because lacked the skills to find out where Gibraltar is, he merely neglected to even make the attempt. It's a failure of planning, not a failure of skills. If someone leaves their house unlocked because they didn't double-check that it was locked when they departed, we don't call that a loss of door-locking skills, we just call it a failure to pay attention. Finally, the article tries to shoehorn in a mention of self-driving cars, I guess because it's the cool thing at the moment. "It's not okay for a driverless car to get bewildered for a bit because it's in a city center." Well sure it is! People do that all the time! It's not like a self-driving car needs GPS in order to avoid crashing.
maw 11y ago
Is "Is Google Making Us Stupid" making us stupid?
Benjammer 11y ago
This seems like a non-issue, or at least not a new issue. People can be bad at reading paper maps, bad at reading star charts, bad at using a sextant, mistake another star for the north star, etc... Also, GPS, digital maps, route optimization, and turn-by-turn navigation are all separate things that this article kind of muddles together into the same "issue".

23 points by mathattack 11y ago

So I recently encountered this. I used to think I was ok at navigating, but whenever I got into an unfamiliar area, I had a hard time navigating using maps and street signs. But I have lived in Puerto Rico for 2.5 years now. Cell coverage and speed is very hit or miss, and the mountains and valleys make GPS and connected maps very unreliable. After 2 years here, I went from getting lost or turned around frequently to being able to navigate most of the island without my phone. And I feel like my sense of direction has improved significantly.

aylons 11y ago

This article conflates digital map and GPS shamelessly, making the argument very confusing. First, even if I rely on GPS for turn by turn navigation, I still use the map to see the route and specially to locate myself when in a new area. Sometimes I look for a place to eat nearby and them I make the route just by looking at the map: walking is often a matter of choosing nicer streets, which the Google Maps route does not do well. On the other hand, driving around always make me distant from the place I'm at. With or without turn by turn navigation. Without it, I just look at the map and make a route beforehand, never seeing anything around me in between - too worried on navigating for that,even if I am not the driver. People traveling long distances by error was not unheard of before GPS. It was just less of a news item. Quite on the contrary, I bet they are less frequent today. Also, a good share of the population always had problems reading maps. I guess they are the ones that depend the most on GPS.

jinushaun 11y ago
That was the problem with Apple Maps. The digital map was awful, but the GPS directions were actually good.

Trisell 11y ago

I grew up in the rural Pacific Northwest, hunting and fishing, and I was taught land navigation via compass and topo map. I still enjoy using these tools to hike cross country, and even for following main trails. But it boggles my mind how many people I see out in the deep woods, with only a gps or phone as their only navigation aid. Electronics fail, my map and compass have never failed me.

mikestew 11y ago
Electronics fail, my map and compass have never failed me. Fail? Shit, for hiking scenarios they just plain don't work half the time due to terrain and tree cover. Dedicated GPS units seem to have improved a lot, but there's no way I'd rely on a phone for guidance. I, too, grew up on compass and topo map. My primary "good way to get lost" activity is trail running, and I always carry a paper map. It might just be the trail map from the trailhead, but at least it's something that doesn't rely on batteries or an outside entity keeping their systems up. So, yeah, perhaps "we" are too reliant if it has people wandering off into the woods with nothing but a cell phone. OTOH, those same folks probably would just wandered off with nothing but a hardy "I have a good sense of direction" if they didn't have a GPS.

buckhx 11y ago

I'm surprised they didn't make any mention of GPS spoofing, that's much scarier to me than jamming and is becoming easier and cheaper every year.

sharkweek 11y ago

One of my best friends is a firefighter, about 30 years old, but started a few years ago in his mid-20s. During his training, the captain would take him out on training rides and absolutely berate his lack of knowledge of local streets of both the city in which they worked and in the other local cities that they were most commonly called to. This went on for months at a time until he could recite entire city maps nearly by heart. He complained a lot at first about why they didn't predominantly use GPS, thinking "get with the times, folks" but in his blossoming career, he says it's pretty nice taking the rig out and just, with second nature, knowing where to go. This also comforts me as a citizen of the city, knowing they don't rely on a technology that could fail in critical moments to get to where they need to serve.

pimlottc 11y ago

The truth is that navigation apps are not really designed to give you a larger sense of your route but rather just what you need to do to get to the next turn. Partially this is due to the relatively small size of smartphone screens but it is often actually actively difficult to zoom out or scroll ahead while in navigation mode. It's so focused on the details that you miss the big picture. What if you made a different kind of navigation app, one that was designed to help you learn the streets as your travel? It could teach your about the main freeways and arterial roads. It could monitor your driving and give you points when you successfully reach your destination without turn-by-turn "hints" (though it would be ready to help you out if you got too off-course). Granted, I'm not sure how big a market there would be for kind of app, but I'd love to try it. I think it'd be an interested experiment at the very least.

SubZero 11y ago

The article also places a big emphasis on people driving to the incorrect locations, hundreds of miles away from their intended destination. To me, this is a user error rather than a system issue. Every GPS system has the user confirm their destination address to keep this from happening.

mikeash 11y ago

Are we too reliant on GPS? I don't think so. There's Galileo and GLONASS, after all. Your smartphone probably already supports GLONASS, and I imagine we'll see widespread Galileo support once the constellation is more complete. Are we too reliant on turn by turn directions? Maybe. On the other hand, stupid failures like the ones mentioned in the article are pretty rare. That's pretty much by definition, otherwise they wouldn't have made the news in the first place. Are we losing navigational skills? Maybe. But what the article discusses isn't a lack of navigational skills, it's a simple unwillingness to use them. I'm sure that Syrian truck driver didn't go off course because lacked the skills to find out where Gibraltar is, he merely neglected to even make the attempt. It's a failure of planning, not a failure of skills. If someone leaves their house unlocked because they didn't double-check that it was locked when they departed, we don't call that a loss of door-locking skills, we just call it a failure to pay attention. Finally, the article tries to shoehorn in a mention of self-driving cars, I guess because it's the cool thing at the moment. "It's not okay for a driverless car to get bewildered for a bit because it's in a city center." Well sure it is! People do that all the time! It's not like a self-driving car needs GPS in order to avoid crashing.

maw 11y ago

Is "Is Google Making Us Stupid" making us stupid?

Benjammer 11y ago

This seems like a non-issue, or at least not a new issue. People can be bad at reading paper maps, bad at reading star charts, bad at using a sextant, mistake another star for the north star, etc... Also, GPS, digital maps, route optimization, and turn-by-turn navigation are all separate things that this article kind of muddles together into the same "issue".