5 ms·

Ditch the GPS

39 points by lelf 7y ago

unsignedint 7y ago
Most of time, I use GPS not just because I have zero clue how to get to places. (Time to time, I have to do this, but I would actually look up the place on a map to get a general idea of how to get to places.) What I find useful from GPS is generally unexpected detours, avoiding traffics, and getting lane guidance information (though instructions given by GPS software are not perfect, it gives me general sense of having to do multiple lane changes last minutes with agony...)
- BrandoElFollito 7y ago
  I often switch on GPS on mute mode when driving a road I know, but not it's surroundings. Then when a road block appears I do not need to think where to go, which side to take when the road suddenly splits etc. I needed to use that maybe 3 times in my life but it was great to know that I can make mistakes which will be corrected by the GPS
thdrdt 7y ago
I never use a GPS because I just look on the map, remember where my destination is, and drive to it. But even before GPS there were a lot of people who could not navigate. For those people it is really great to have a navigation system. So I feel this article sound like 'sell your car because walking is healthier'. But I must also agree with the article. When I tried GPS I had no idea where I was. I believe this is because we trust the system so much that we forget our own 'responsibility'.
- tomohawk 7y ago
  Unfortunately, good maps are now scarce or unavailable. The situational awareness of understanding where you are is a big loss compared to following GPS directions. Looking at a map, you may decide to take a detour or follow a more scenic route. Google maps on android makes this very hard to do since they've disabled the route dragging feature. I also find that the computer generated routes, while much better than they used to be, are often optimized for the wrong things. I can often pick a better route myself. I have a family member who would be lost without GPS, but they end up doing a lot of unnecessary driving when going out for more than one errand as they have no idea what the best overall route would be or where these things are in relation to one another.
  - thdrdt 7y ago
    That's why I prefer MAPS.ME (uses OpenStreetMap). It is a little slow but so is Google Maps nowadays. But OSM is way better imho. And MAPS.ME can download offline maps for different areas.
    - craftkiller 7y ago
      Google maps can also download offline maps for different areas: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838 https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838
- coupdejarnac 7y ago
  I'm the same way, and often when younger people are in the car with me, they remark that I have a great sense of direction. I'm pretty convinced that a substantial percentage of drivers under 30 have no idea where anything is. Plus, judging by how people drive and make erratic last moment lane changes/exits, have reduced situational awareness due to being over reliant on gps or being diverted while driving.
kristianc 7y ago
The argument made for GPS leading to hippocampal atrophy could easily be made for any new technology. And yet, the evidence of generations of expanding technology, appears to be that it doesn’t affect brain function in any meaningful way. Instead our brains pocket the technological advance and start to move on to higher order stuff. I have a hard time believing that GPS is the one thing, specifically, that is going to buck that trend and make us all stupid. This does seem like more poorly sourced, poorly researched viral techno-gloom.
- kortilla 7y ago
  > move on to higher order stuff. I was with you until here. I think many people don’t end up doing “higher order” stuff with the extra bit of time they have driving. Maybe once self driving is here, but it’s not. I drive without GPS on long road trips and the cognitive load required is minimal so it’s not like it’s blocking me from thinking.
  - pugio 7y ago
    Disagree. I love listening to audiobooks and podcasts while driving, and I love being able to just follow the GPS directions on auto pilot, trusting it will do a decent job, and warn be me when the appropriate turn approaches. When navigating sans GPS I spend much more time rehearsing routes and turns in my head, which means I have to pause or rewind my audiobook.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      You should have your full attention on the road, not on your audiobook. I hope that if you ever get into an accident you will be frank about it and tell the other party - assuming they -- and you -- survive - that you were distracted.
      - scrollaway 7y ago
        I got a bit of a "yikes" at reading the parent comment as well but how is it actually any different from listening to the radio, which has been a thing drivers have done ever since we put radios in automobiles? Unlike "handsfree phones", listening to a podcast doesn't require interaction and full attention (although it does sound like GP is giving too much of theirs).
dt3ft 7y ago
Archive link: http://archive.is/6D3iB http://archive.is/6D3iB
NetBeck 7y ago
The fear of becoming lost is gone, and so goes the brain's tools to navigate.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  Aren't you describing this generation's future ? technology is not helping it's obsoleting.
dmytroi 7y ago
I'm learning how to fly, and tell you what, cognitive overload is real. At first students have a hard time to coupe with stick/pedals, airspeed indicator and looking around for positioning / avoiding other planes. Having a "moving map" that tells you in which airspace you are exactly and where you're going - priceless. Simply because beginner students don't have cognitive capability to comprehend everything at a same time. And as experience grows, cognitive load required decreases, so people have easier time to read paper maps as they progress. That being said, in emergency fewer things to worry - the better. If primary instruments fail (airspeed / attitude / etc), one doesn't have mental capability to deal with instrument failures AND deal with paper maps at a same time. This is directly transferable to road driving. For example when switching sides of the road: going from France to UK, and suddenly it requires immense cognitive load to adapt to drive on left side (unless previous experience). Or different road standards, for example in Italy highway on-ramps are like 50 meters long (and road switches from 30-50 to 80-120 kph), which most people are unprepared to. So while yes, GPS might take away some, but it's very nice to have under high cognitive load.
- kzrdude 7y ago
  I guess this is obvious, but still gave me a minor epiphany on why experience matters so much. It gives you capacity to handle unforeseen situations by having reduced the cognitive load of all regular operations. I was recently discussing the difference between experienced (10-20 years) nurses and younger nurses; the new ones do a great job, but they might stress and concentrate a lot to the job right, and don't always have the capacity to handle unforeseen situations with grace or the energy to handle the relatives of the patient too (I was a frequent visitor in a trauma care ward).
- unsignedint 7y ago
  Another aspect is that the drivers are actually legally hindered (in many of areas) of an ability to check the paper map as they drive, so it's either you learn and memorize the whole way or stop the car to check; or you can have GPS to provide you with voice guidance or quick glance of which turn to take.
- barrkel 7y ago
Cougher 7y ago
How about journalists stop telling us what we're doing wrong and what we should start doing/not doing because the journalist had some simple-minded eureka moment? GPS use is not an either/or thing where if you use GPS, you NEVER don't use GPS. These researchers who are finding atrophy in the hipposcampus due to less use need to ask "less use compared to what?" Compared to people who use it more? Congratulations for seeing the obvious. Less use compared to the way the hippocampus grew or atrophied in humans decades and centuries ago when they didn't use GPS and also didn't regularly travel vast distances or study maps to do so?
- StavrosK 7y ago
  I couldn't read the article because of the pay wall, but if the argument is "stop using GPS because it weakens some part of your brain", it's the same old argument. It's frustrating to me to see this rehashed all the time because it amounts to "stop using a useful thing because it degrades your skills when you don't have that thing". Yeah, the reason I don't care about memorizing a hundred phone numbers any more is because I never need to type one in.
  - msla 7y ago
    And nobody memorized a hundred phone numbers anyway. Beyond a certain point, people had books (little black books, even) with phone numbers written in them. My point is, whenever people rail against new technology, they tend to forget about old technology and how that was supposed to be the downfall of mankind back when it was new, or at least in the spotlight. For example, before TV, we had novels, and, much like how TV was railed against for destroying your mind, novels were supposed to be dangerous and deleterious: http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/DEVOURNG.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/DEVOURNG.xhtml
  - tsjq 7y ago
    Paywall bypass : https://outline.com/muUPmD https://outline.com/muUPmD
fit2rule 7y ago
Learn to navigate by all means possible. Use GPS if you have it, use the stars if you need it. Whenever you get to a new city, find out where things are. Use books if you have them at hand, or whatever. Humans are nomads. We either know where we are, or we don't. The tools we build to solve this problem only get us where we want to go when we use them. (Map-reader here. GPS is great. So is a good chart.)
myself248 7y ago
When I'm in a new city, I navigate with a GPS for the first few trips around, then I start progressively getting rid of it: First, I let the unit plot my route, and I study it for a minute before getting under way, but then I put it face-down on the passenger seat and try to navigate from memory. It's right there if I need a hint, though, still tracking. Some while after that, I'll let the unit plot my route, but then simply turn it off. If I get lost or turned around, I'll pull into a parking lot and turn it back on, get my bearings again, turn it back off, and try again. This adds a bit of pressure to the recall, and really steps up my brain's navigation abilities. I've found that these few simple steps, and just maybe a dozen trips, make me learn VERY quickly. I'm no longer a tourist, I feel like "I belong here", and that's a big deal for me. Feeling comfortable in a place is important, and knowing my way around is a huge part of that. ---- Related (and reposted from an old comment of mine): Some time back, I gave my old TomTom to a not-very-technically adept friend. I figured a little introduction was in order, and at first, I asked her to interact with the unit while I did the driving. The first thing I did was ignore every instruction. A few minutes of https://xkcd.com/1837/ https://xkcd.com/1837/ ensued. Because I wanted to drive home the point, you won't break the machine by ignoring it. If you don't feel like making that turn, just don't make it. The voice in the box will just recalculate, it won't get annoyed, it has infinite patience and can recalculate for as many maneuvers as you feel like missing. This is a crucial bit of understanding that I think many drivers lack, as they blindly try to follow impossible or unsafe maneuvers like the computer's word must be obeyed absolutely. This should be part of driver's-ed.
- jeffrallen 7y ago
  Knowing that computers are not to be obeyed but used as tools should be part of human ed.
upofadown 7y ago
I hate GPS... But that is because I love being lost, particularly in a place like a strange city. There is a kind of joy in not knowing were you will be next and what you might discover. Something like GPS more or less forces you to decide on a destination. Often times, having a destination means you miss a lot of interesting places. Even if you have a destination it can be better to end up at that destination through an interpretation of your surroundings and what they mean. My father used to call this process "getting the lay of the land". You don't have to just travel past your environment, you can become part of it.
- msla 7y ago
  Being lost in a city can be fun. Being lost in a few thousand square miles of "not much", "almost nothing", and "this is supposedly a town but it looks like a grain elevator with outbuildings" is anywhere from boring to actively dangerous, depending on the weather.
benbristow 7y ago
In the UK the practical driving tests have actually been changed to incorporate GPSes. They have changed a section where previously you would have to drive without instructions to a certain location using only road signs/previous knowledge. Now you have to go to a set location using GPS/SatNav instructions instead (although 1 in 5 tests make you use road signs only) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/driving-test-changes-4-december-2017 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/driving-test-changes-4-de...
tsjq 7y ago
Paywall bypass : https://outline.com/muUPmD https://outline.com/muUPmD

39 points by lelf 7y ago

Most of time, I use GPS not just because I have zero clue how to get to places. (Time to time, I have to do this, but I would actually look up the place on a map to get a general idea of how to get to places.) What I find useful from GPS is generally unexpected detours, avoiding traffics, and getting lane guidance information (though instructions given by GPS software are not perfect, it gives me general sense of having to do multiple lane changes last minutes with agony...)

BrandoElFollito 7y ago
I often switch on GPS on mute mode when driving a road I know, but not it's surroundings. Then when a road block appears I do not need to think where to go, which side to take when the road suddenly splits etc. I needed to use that maybe 3 times in my life but it was great to know that I can make mistakes which will be corrected by the GPS

thdrdt 7y ago

I never use a GPS because I just look on the map, remember where my destination is, and drive to it. But even before GPS there were a lot of people who could not navigate. For those people it is really great to have a navigation system. So I feel this article sound like 'sell your car because walking is healthier'. But I must also agree with the article. When I tried GPS I had no idea where I was. I believe this is because we trust the system so much that we forget our own 'responsibility'.

tomohawk 7y ago
Unfortunately, good maps are now scarce or unavailable. The situational awareness of understanding where you are is a big loss compared to following GPS directions. Looking at a map, you may decide to take a detour or follow a more scenic route. Google maps on android makes this very hard to do since they've disabled the route dragging feature. I also find that the computer generated routes, while much better than they used to be, are often optimized for the wrong things. I can often pick a better route myself. I have a family member who would be lost without GPS, but they end up doing a lot of unnecessary driving when going out for more than one errand as they have no idea what the best overall route would be or where these things are in relation to one another.
- thdrdt 7y ago
  That's why I prefer MAPS.ME (uses OpenStreetMap). It is a little slow but so is Google Maps nowadays. But OSM is way better imho. And MAPS.ME can download offline maps for different areas.
  - craftkiller 7y ago
    Google maps can also download offline maps for different areas: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838 https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838
coupdejarnac 7y ago
I'm the same way, and often when younger people are in the car with me, they remark that I have a great sense of direction. I'm pretty convinced that a substantial percentage of drivers under 30 have no idea where anything is. Plus, judging by how people drive and make erratic last moment lane changes/exits, have reduced situational awareness due to being over reliant on gps or being diverted while driving.

kristianc 7y ago

The argument made for GPS leading to hippocampal atrophy could easily be made for any new technology. And yet, the evidence of generations of expanding technology, appears to be that it doesn’t affect brain function in any meaningful way. Instead our brains pocket the technological advance and start to move on to higher order stuff. I have a hard time believing that GPS is the one thing, specifically, that is going to buck that trend and make us all stupid. This does seem like more poorly sourced, poorly researched viral techno-gloom.

kortilla 7y ago
> move on to higher order stuff. I was with you until here. I think many people don’t end up doing “higher order” stuff with the extra bit of time they have driving. Maybe once self driving is here, but it’s not. I drive without GPS on long road trips and the cognitive load required is minimal so it’s not like it’s blocking me from thinking.
- pugio 7y ago
  Disagree. I love listening to audiobooks and podcasts while driving, and I love being able to just follow the GPS directions on auto pilot, trusting it will do a decent job, and warn be me when the appropriate turn approaches. When navigating sans GPS I spend much more time rehearsing routes and turns in my head, which means I have to pause or rewind my audiobook.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    You should have your full attention on the road, not on your audiobook. I hope that if you ever get into an accident you will be frank about it and tell the other party - assuming they -- and you -- survive - that you were distracted.
    - scrollaway 7y ago
      I got a bit of a "yikes" at reading the parent comment as well but how is it actually any different from listening to the radio, which has been a thing drivers have done ever since we put radios in automobiles? Unlike "handsfree phones", listening to a podcast doesn't require interaction and full attention (although it does sound like GP is giving too much of theirs).

dt3ft 7y ago

Archive link: http://archive.is/6D3iB http://archive.is/6D3iB

NetBeck 7y ago

The fear of becoming lost is gone, and so goes the brain's tools to navigate.

agumonkey 7y ago
Aren't you describing this generation's future ? technology is not helping it's obsoleting.

dmytroi 7y ago

I'm learning how to fly, and tell you what, cognitive overload is real. At first students have a hard time to coupe with stick/pedals, airspeed indicator and looking around for positioning / avoiding other planes. Having a "moving map" that tells you in which airspace you are exactly and where you're going - priceless. Simply because beginner students don't have cognitive capability to comprehend everything at a same time. And as experience grows, cognitive load required decreases, so people have easier time to read paper maps as they progress. That being said, in emergency fewer things to worry - the better. If primary instruments fail (airspeed / attitude / etc), one doesn't have mental capability to deal with instrument failures AND deal with paper maps at a same time. This is directly transferable to road driving. For example when switching sides of the road: going from France to UK, and suddenly it requires immense cognitive load to adapt to drive on left side (unless previous experience). Or different road standards, for example in Italy highway on-ramps are like 50 meters long (and road switches from 30-50 to 80-120 kph), which most people are unprepared to. So while yes, GPS might take away some, but it's very nice to have under high cognitive load.

kzrdude 7y ago
I guess this is obvious, but still gave me a minor epiphany on why experience matters so much. It gives you capacity to handle unforeseen situations by having reduced the cognitive load of all regular operations. I was recently discussing the difference between experienced (10-20 years) nurses and younger nurses; the new ones do a great job, but they might stress and concentrate a lot to the job right, and don't always have the capacity to handle unforeseen situations with grace or the energy to handle the relatives of the patient too (I was a frequent visitor in a trauma care ward).
unsignedint 7y ago
Another aspect is that the drivers are actually legally hindered (in many of areas) of an ability to check the paper map as they drive, so it's either you learn and memorize the whole way or stop the car to check; or you can have GPS to provide you with voice guidance or quick glance of which turn to take.
barrkel 7y ago

Cougher 7y ago

How about journalists stop telling us what we're doing wrong and what we should start doing/not doing because the journalist had some simple-minded eureka moment? GPS use is not an either/or thing where if you use GPS, you NEVER don't use GPS. These researchers who are finding atrophy in the hipposcampus due to less use need to ask "less use compared to what?" Compared to people who use it more? Congratulations for seeing the obvious. Less use compared to the way the hippocampus grew or atrophied in humans decades and centuries ago when they didn't use GPS and also didn't regularly travel vast distances or study maps to do so?

StavrosK 7y ago
I couldn't read the article because of the pay wall, but if the argument is "stop using GPS because it weakens some part of your brain", it's the same old argument. It's frustrating to me to see this rehashed all the time because it amounts to "stop using a useful thing because it degrades your skills when you don't have that thing". Yeah, the reason I don't care about memorizing a hundred phone numbers any more is because I never need to type one in.
- msla 7y ago
  And nobody memorized a hundred phone numbers anyway. Beyond a certain point, people had books (little black books, even) with phone numbers written in them. My point is, whenever people rail against new technology, they tend to forget about old technology and how that was supposed to be the downfall of mankind back when it was new, or at least in the spotlight. For example, before TV, we had novels, and, much like how TV was railed against for destroying your mind, novels were supposed to be dangerous and deleterious: http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/CONFESSN.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/DEVOURNG.xhtml http://www.merrycoz.org/books/DEVOURNG.xhtml
- tsjq 7y ago
  Paywall bypass : https://outline.com/muUPmD https://outline.com/muUPmD

fit2rule 7y ago

Learn to navigate by all means possible. Use GPS if you have it, use the stars if you need it. Whenever you get to a new city, find out where things are. Use books if you have them at hand, or whatever. Humans are nomads. We either know where we are, or we don't. The tools we build to solve this problem only get us where we want to go when we use them. (Map-reader here. GPS is great. So is a good chart.)

myself248 7y ago

When I'm in a new city, I navigate with a GPS for the first few trips around, then I start progressively getting rid of it: First, I let the unit plot my route, and I study it for a minute before getting under way, but then I put it face-down on the passenger seat and try to navigate from memory. It's right there if I need a hint, though, still tracking. Some while after that, I'll let the unit plot my route, but then simply turn it off. If I get lost or turned around, I'll pull into a parking lot and turn it back on, get my bearings again, turn it back off, and try again. This adds a bit of pressure to the recall, and really steps up my brain's navigation abilities. I've found that these few simple steps, and just maybe a dozen trips, make me learn VERY quickly. I'm no longer a tourist, I feel like "I belong here", and that's a big deal for me. Feeling comfortable in a place is important, and knowing my way around is a huge part of that. ---- Related (and reposted from an old comment of mine): Some time back, I gave my old TomTom to a not-very-technically adept friend. I figured a little introduction was in order, and at first, I asked her to interact with the unit while I did the driving. The first thing I did was ignore every instruction. A few minutes of https://xkcd.com/1837/ https://xkcd.com/1837/ ensued. Because I wanted to drive home the point, you won't break the machine by ignoring it. If you don't feel like making that turn, just don't make it. The voice in the box will just recalculate, it won't get annoyed, it has infinite patience and can recalculate for as many maneuvers as you feel like missing. This is a crucial bit of understanding that I think many drivers lack, as they blindly try to follow impossible or unsafe maneuvers like the computer's word must be obeyed absolutely. This should be part of driver's-ed.

jeffrallen 7y ago
Knowing that computers are not to be obeyed but used as tools should be part of human ed.

upofadown 7y ago

I hate GPS... But that is because I love being lost, particularly in a place like a strange city. There is a kind of joy in not knowing were you will be next and what you might discover. Something like GPS more or less forces you to decide on a destination. Often times, having a destination means you miss a lot of interesting places. Even if you have a destination it can be better to end up at that destination through an interpretation of your surroundings and what they mean. My father used to call this process "getting the lay of the land". You don't have to just travel past your environment, you can become part of it.

msla 7y ago
Being lost in a city can be fun. Being lost in a few thousand square miles of "not much", "almost nothing", and "this is supposedly a town but it looks like a grain elevator with outbuildings" is anywhere from boring to actively dangerous, depending on the weather.

benbristow 7y ago

In the UK the practical driving tests have actually been changed to incorporate GPSes. They have changed a section where previously you would have to drive without instructions to a certain location using only road signs/previous knowledge. Now you have to go to a set location using GPS/SatNav instructions instead (although 1 in 5 tests make you use road signs only) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/driving-test-changes-4-december-2017 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/driving-test-changes-4-de...

tsjq 7y ago

Paywall bypass : https://outline.com/muUPmD https://outline.com/muUPmD