19 ms·

Habitual GPS use negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation

314 points by goplayoutside 4y ago

throwaway22032 4y ago
I figure this is just one of those "do you want it" things. I want to speak German, I don't want to use Google Translate. I want to know where Hackney is, I don't want to just plug it into Citymapper. Works for me. Some people don't like self actualization, so be it.
bilinguliar 4y ago
Comment about IDE.
BrentOzar 4y ago
Habitual calculator usage negatively impacts basic mathematics skills, film at 11.
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  And I'm guessing habitual recall via Google query negatively impacts memory recall skills. News at 11:30.
  - thewarrior 4y ago
    I have been wondering recently whether this is a bad thing. Because having the right ideas in memory is often required for making creative leaps. Relying too much on google can actually inhibit creativity.
    - acidburnNSA 4y ago
      I used to worry that it was bad, but now I've embraced it. I try to know just enough to synthesize new thoughts but can defer to Google for details.
    - throwawaysleep 4y ago
      On the other hand, Google lets you actually find information rather than just wishing you had it. https://imgur.io/pumgE https://imgur.io/pumgE Do I remember a lower percentage of the facts I have encountered in life than others? Almost certainly. But I also bet that I have encountered vastly more as a result.
      - nonrandomstring 4y ago
        > Google lets you actually find information rather than just wishing you had it. Correct. And that's a problem. The "wishing you had it" part is actually really important. Creativity and understanding isn't just assembling a jigsaw puzzle of discrete information facts. Holding together a mental model, including many partial and missing pieces of information, is how innovative leaps occur. A Google driven life, treading over popular, permitted pathways is comfortable and convenient but requires only some small fraction of the adult human brain. More is not necessarily more when it comes to information.
    - potatoman22 4y ago
      I don't think it's bad overall. Web search has essentially extended our recall abilities to everything that's easily searchable if you have a device on hand.
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Usage of digital clocks and particularly smartphones leads to degeneration in analog time telling ability. News at whenever the notification shows up on your cell phone.
- someweirdperson 4y ago
  Only arithmetics skills, not basic mathematics skills in general.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  Habitual flint and pyrite usage negatively impacts basic bow drill fire making skills.
chippytea 4y ago
One of the things I like to do when I go somewhere new is try to drive (or often cycle) back home without using my phone. I get lost sometimes, but I feel a silly sense of achievement when I make it back home without checking my phone. I enjoy the challange and I also learn a lot about my local area. There are many businesses in my city that I discovered only because I was trying to memorise a route.
avl999 4y ago
I am practically incapable of navigating without GPS/Google maps.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Well, you have to prep. And, to be honest, if you're by yourself you're probably going to be balancing a map on your lap someplace if it's not straightforward. There's also the old movie/TV trope where, typically, the guy refuses to stop at a gas station to ask for directions if they're lost. Which has now (mostly) joined the trope of not being able to reach someone just because they're not in the physical location you expect them to be.
nso95 4y ago
It's true, but how does one deal with it?
- kelnos 4y ago
  Easy: use GPS less. Maybe rely on it for your first trip somewhere new, but after that, try to navigate by memory. And even when you've gone somewhere new, try to find your way back home without the GPS. For locations that you frequent, don't use the GPS at all. Often I'll do a quick GPS check for places like that just to see if my normal route is clear of bad traffic, and then travel without it running. Yes, you'll get lost occasionally, but that's ok. You'll still have the GPS if you get hopelessly lost and give up.
  - devchix 4y ago
    Yes but a major part of wayfinding now is to route around traffic. I know my way to work every day but still turn on GPS because I don't know where accident and detours might be happening.
abnry 4y ago
I enjoy navigating without gps. I can always memorize most of the way there as it is usually just following main roads. It is the last portion that can be hardest. I like to think of directions in terms of "topological complexity". If it is just off a highway or off of a road off the highway it is easy to navigate to. Has nothing to do with how far away it is or how familiar I am with the area. Similar to this is the fact that it is always easier to navigate home than to a new place. In the former, you are aiming for the web of roads that you recognize. In the latter, it is a specific point.
- zxcvbn4038 4y ago
  I’m more the opposite - I spent decades driving without GPS, and I got to see very little of where I went because I’m trying to read a map or atlas, not crash into anyone, and cross six lanes of traffic because the exit is on the opposite side of the highway. I drove the equivalent of twelve times around the equator and it was all a blur. With GPS I can actually look beyond the car in front of me and enjoy seeing what I am driving through. In recent years I’ve started setting the Avoid Highways feature and taking back roads everywhere - no traffic, no cops, no people driving crazy, lots of wildlife, lots of sights, cheap gas, etc. generally only adds an hour to my travel time.
  - matwood 4y ago
    I agree on all points. I remember driving from Paris to Epinal using printed out directions. At some point after the 15 roundabout we had no idea where we were. Luckily we were are to speak with some nice people to help guide us the rest of the way, but we almost missed the time we had to be at our destination.
    - paganel 4y ago
      To be fair French deep-country roundabouts are the work of the devil. Me and my SO did a cross-European car-journey a few years ago and we managed to get all the way from Bucharest to France just fine without using any GPS. And then we got into the French roundabouts. I gave up close to Orleans. We wanted to get off the highway and use a smaller road, for sightseeing, it's only that I literally re-created this infamous scene [1] with the only difference that there were 3 or 4 roundabouts in quick succession involved, not a big one. I almost had tears of frustration, I'm not exaggerating, but thanks to my SO who started co-piloting me with "take the second exit in the next roundabout" and stuff like that we managed to get out of it all. After a few days driving through France I think I managed to get the hang of those roundabouts without using GPS, but it wasn't easy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc
dsomers 4y ago
- archhn 4y ago
  I think the poster is interested in this case as an example of how delegating a task to technology leads to skill atrophy. We do it more and more every year. Technology may be making us stupid. It all leads to WALL-Eesque retardation and decadence.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  I’m sure most of us have noticed it and commented on it but proving it is different. Like the difference between postulating the Higgs boson and provings its existence.
DaltonCoffee 4y ago
"Every extension of mankind, especially technological extensions, has the effect of amputating or modifying some other extension[…] The extension of a technology like the automobile “amputates” the need for a highly developed walking culture, which in turn causes cities and countries to develop in different ways. The telephone extends the voice, but also amputates the art of penmanship gained through regular correspondence. ways.” — Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man Love this quote, and many others by MM. Utterly blows my mind how we seem to be failing to apply and extend his teachings to help understand this modernity beta test we're participating in.
- tootie 4y ago
  I think "obviate" is a better term than "amputate". I mean, who the hell cares about penmanship? Absolutely useless skill.
  - lock-the-spock 4y ago
    While I empathise with your position I can totally see how others might not. Letter writing is a specific skill to provide a dense and clear message. You have to prepare this message in your head first as you cannot (attractively) eliminate what you wrote already unless you redo the whole letter. Im sure many people today would have benefitted from more occasions to hone thinking and preparation ahead of expressing views or opinions. Similarly you could say remembering phone numbers is a useless skill that many had pre smartphones - you just knew your 30 or so most used numbers. Now we all depend on our phones and once the battery is dead many people don't seem to know any number by heart.
    - jimmaswell 4y ago
      > provide a dense and clear message There is Twitter for that
      - kixiQu 4y ago
        If I handwrite a letter, I'm filtering before and while I write to reduce all the nonsense that might pass through my head down to something I hope will be of interest to the recipient. If I tweet, I can shoot out all of that nonsense to the world, secure in the knowledge that the filtering labor will be done in combination by some subset of potential recipients (whose choices to engage or not will provide the fodder that the Twitter feed-building algorithm can use to determine whether it's passed the filter). This might then indicate that a skill that might be atrophying is the ability to filter one's own writing for relevance/value, not just to produce it in cursive. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine what other signs they would look for to confirm or disconfirm this hypothetical atrophy.
Bolkan 4y ago
On a related note, playing far cry 2 without using the handheld map and walking everywhere did wonders for my spatial memory. The game is gorgeous and full of tiny details so it isn't as boring as it might sound. Each mission starts with an npc giving you the location of your target (safehouse 2 miles east of shanty town, outpost south of lumber yard). Sun can be used as a compass (when it's not raining). After a while you start to recognize the landmarks and don't need the map anymore.
daleharvey 4y ago
I spend a lot of time outdoors / hillwalking / mountain climbing in Scotland and it is quite fustrating and in my opinion quite dangerous how technophobic the standard advice given is. Almost universally guides and mountain rescue people will advise that people should carry and have knowledge of how to use a map and compass, inform that a phone with GPS is to be used as a backup with no advice given on how to use it. Navigating with a map and compass is a difficult skill that takes a lot of practise, Scottish munros are very regularly subject to almost zero visibility where even the most advanced navigator would have difficulty. Almost none of the receipients of this advice actually want to navigate, they want to be able to follow a route for duration of their journey. A task that is very simply done with a phone if someone has been given the correct instruction. When people have an appropriate route downloaded on their phone to work offline ensuring they have enough charge and suitable backup devices alongside told someone their route and expected time of return they have covered most of the situations that get people in trouble in terms of navigation. Instead they are routinely told to bring a map and compass by people who generally seem to be enthusiastic volunteers who have a deep interest specifically around navigation.
- ghaff 4y ago
  I dunno. >and suitable backup devices First of all, I wonder how many people actually have suitable backup devices. Secondly, stuff does happen. There are a lot of circumstances where a very simple compass and map--and knowledge that doesn't require elite M&C navigation skills can be the difference between "Um, I have no idea where I am and how to get home" and "Damn, I guess I need to do this the old fashioned way." Yes, there are conditions and locations where the "old fashioned way" is really difficult to do. But often there are trails and some visibility and you just need some basic ability to read a map and know what direction you're headed in. Do I bother when I know an area and the weather is good? Nope. But for anything more advanced, I carry a map and compass as pretty cheap and easy insurance.
  - daleharvey 4y ago
    > First of all, I wonder how many people actually have suitable backup devices. Virtually every group of people will have multiple backup devices, for people going solo it something that should (but isn't) recommended. > Secondly, stuff does happen. Stuff does and in every case if you want to follow a route having a little dot that shows you exactly where you are in relation to that route is better than having a map and compass. I am not sure why you are replying to my point as if it is not a choice for people to carry a phone with them but somewhat makes the point. A properly prepared phone is a map and compass, it does everything a map and compass can do and then adds an extra useful feature of "and this is exactly where you are"
nickjj 4y ago
Independent of GPS I think people are built differently and can understand 3D (first person) vs 2D (top down) worlds in different ways. I know someone who can go anywhere once without GPS and recall directions 10 years later even if they never drove near that area again. It's like their memory can recall it the same as the first time they went there. At the same time watching them type on a keyboard is about the same as what it must have been like to witness humans using basic tools for the first time. I've always been bad with driving directions, the idea of navigating in 3D from the first person doesn't mesh with how I think for recalling directions but if I look at a top down 2D map and split things into a grid then it's not too bad. I only just started using GPS the other week but I feel like it has helped me retain information a lot better, I can visualize the route in my mind and trace the turns with street names in a way that I could never do before. Interestingly enough I don't think it's necessarily first person vs top down on its own too. I've played a lot of FPS games in the past with games that never had a top down map and I can still run through them mentally like 15-20 years later. I don't know what it is, it doesn't make sense to be tuned for navigating a virtual world vs physical world but I do think GPS clicks some checkbox in my brain that makes it be perceived as virtualized even though it's mapping the physical world.
- MiddleEndian 4y ago
  Anecdotally, if I'm walking or taking the train, I like to use top-down, north-oriented GPS. If I'm driving, I like the first person view with turn-by-turn directions. But I don't drive often.
throwaway675309 4y ago
Well duh, there was a study on London cabbies who had to take a test known as "the knowledge", and it was found that they had significantly more growth in their hippocampus. So obviously the reverse would probably be true. I remember I used to chunk numbers in 3 to 4 digit groupings because back in the day that was how I naturally memorized phone numbers, successive generations probably can't rely on that tactic as much simply because there's so little need to retain the phone numbers in memory with the invention of smart phones.
- noirbot 4y ago
  Sure, but that feels like an equivalence of just saying "people without a college degree are less mentally developed than those who do." Memorizing the street system of a city the size of London is obviously hard. But is it important to actually do so in a world where it's not essential? I feel like the implication of a lot of these articles is "people aren't learning X thing that's not essential now, and instead are learning TikTok Memes." Which may not be wrong, but how much of a problem actually is that? Obviously, a century ago, there was no slack for almost anyone to not carry their weight in society. Everyone needed to know how to farm and start a fire, and plenty of other things most people don't know any more. Pre-teens had to work important jobs because otherwise people didn't eat. Obviously things have swung away from that, but the question is how far away from that is a good thing vs. just allowing people to indulge in vices.
extr 4y ago
Very believable, I've noticed this effect myself. When I've moved to a new area, if I use GPS exclusively to get around it takes me months to learn the names of roads and do "route planning" in my head. Versus very quickly, within a few days/weeks if I only refer to GPS when legitimately lost or unsure. The thing is, why bother? I always have my phone. If I'm within a few miles of my house, I can figure out where I'm going, but maybe it takes me a little longer, and I don't come up with the optimal route, and now I and have the risk of getting caught in unexpected change in traffic patterns. If I'm somewhere unfamiliar, spatial memory is irrelevant and I have to rely on it regardless. Actually I feel like GPS makes me a better than navigator. Having the "top down" view makes it feel like a video game, and that's one area where I have a ton of practice looking at a 2D map, relating it to 3D environment, and so on.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >I always have my phone. Until you don't. It's probably a generational thing but I tend to have non-electronic backups when it's relatively cheap and easy to do so. And for relatively routine places I walk/drive, I much prefer to have the route in my head.
- noirbot 4y ago
  I think a lot of this ends up behind how you learn navigation. I love GPS as a way to build up heuristics of how to get places in a new city/from a new location. I find I mostly learn routes by visual memory and not by street names/distances/number of blocks. I know to turn at a specific building/business, and not because it's 5th street or a specific train station. If you're someone who learns your routes in terms of facts/numbers, then I can see GPS hurting your memory, but in my case, the GPS won't tell me to turn at the Walmart, or get off at the train station with the green tile. So after a few GPS trips, I've learned the route in the way my brain will remember. This especially helps when I don't know the traffic patterns or alternate routes that a navigation app does. These days, for routes I don't know really well, or have high traffic variance, I'll check GPS to verify a route, and then use the route without using the app directly.
- wtallis 4y ago
  > The thing is, why bother? I always have my phone. Relying exclusively on the phone's turn-by-turn directions without having any spatial awareness of your own or knowledge about the planned routes has a strong tendency to make you do stupid, dangerous stuff in traffic any time there's the slightest ambiguity or delay in the phone's instructions to you. This is mitigated somewhat by newer cars that can show you the map on a display that's not too small or too far out of the way of where your eyes should be pointing. But the responsible way to prevent those problems is to pull up the directions and study them for a minute before releasing the parking brake—that way, the phone is more reminding you than controlling you.
zitterbewegung 4y ago
I only use gps to get places where I don’t know where to go but after that I stop using it . But this begs the question why is losing this is bad when we can use our brains for something completely different or make peoples jobs more productive
kuschku 4y ago
I just use Google Maps as actual map, not as navigation. That means I use it to find where I am, look at the roads, and look at where I want to go, and plan the route on the map myself. This helps me to stay oriented when I'm not using a maps app as well, because I already know which roads intersect with which, where, and how to take them to get from A to B. Sadly, Google Maps does everything they can to prevent you from doing this, e.g. not showing street names at all unless you zoom in to ridiculous levels (and often not even then) as well as not showing you which roads are one-way, which roads allow bicycles, etc. That's why I mostly rely on Open Street Map and similar actual maps. Also, if I've got additional time to get somewhere, I'll get lost on purpose, taking roads I don't know yet, then looking at the maps to figure out where I am (which is super useful to discover hidden paths and shortcuts).
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  I use Google maps in exactly the same way and have the same complaint about street names not being visible. Sometimes I'll drop in to street view at an important intersection to see what landmarks pop out, like a certain gas station or business on the corner where I need to turn. It's so funny when I'm with someone and navigating, they see me using Google maps and then are bewildered when I don't turn on the turn by turn yet still get where we're going. They almost can't believe it's possible.
  - abruzzi 4y ago
    my peeve is that if you bring up the terrain map, you see topo lines, but they disappear the moment you get close enough to actually read the elevation of the lines.
    - boldlybold 4y ago
      This has literally been a bug in google maps for going on 10 years and I'm amazed nothing has been done about it. Terrain could be SO MUCH more useful!
    - nicbou 4y ago
theonemind 4y ago
I had no navigation skill before GPS. Now, I can have no navigation skill and still get somewhere!
civilized 4y ago
Yeah, but it frees up more space in my brain for dank memes, so who's to say I'm not better off?
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Yeah no kidding. I've met some people who even use their GPS to get to their local grocery store. I wouldn't trust them to self-navigate out of a cul-de-sac.
- imgabe 4y ago
  In cities with a lot of traffic GPS is useful even for routine trips because it will help route you around traffic jams.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    If you're in your own neighborhood then you should be able to re-route yourself once you see traffic ahead. Personally, I don't ever use GPS unless I'm lost. When I'm going someplace new I plan the route using mapping software before I get in the car. I sketch a quick map of the important parts of the routes (particularly street names, major intersections, exit numbers, etc.) Sketching this map commits the major details to memory, then I put the map in my pocket. If I need to refresh my memory then I'll pull over to check my sketched map. I only need to use GPS if I find myself outside of my map. In these cases I'll pull over to use the GPS to locate myself and plot a route back to my planned route. I never use turn-by-turn directions, because I think driving like that is unsafe. I know this is unusual. Somebody once called me a psychopath because I don't listen to music or the radio while driving either. I don't want to zone out while driving, mindlessly following turn-by-turn directions or listening to some song. I think everybody else is just too cavalier about distractions while driving.
    - spike021 4y ago
      >If you're in your own neighborhood then you should be able to re-route yourself once you see traffic ahead. How does this answer the other commenter's point? If the grocery store is 2 miles away, wouldn't you rather be routed an alternative route at one mile distance away by GPS that "knows" there's terrible traffic congestion the remaining two blocks of the current route? Especially if those two blocks are after a couple of turns which block your view of them?
Havoc 4y ago
Reminds me of the cellphone induced lack of ability to focus for long timespans. Seems a lot of things are use it or lose it
User23 4y ago
Habitual crutch use reduces leg strength[1]. [1] Socrates.
felipelalli 4y ago
Don't say! I think we have a Sherlock Holmes here.
aaron695 4y ago
aasasd 4y ago
I used routing on my phone, but without the instructions, just the map, route and the GPS position marker—plus I had the map always with north on top, no rotation and no ‘3d’. This arrangement actually taught me about what is where in this city and how that looks from above. Otherwise I would be practically like a recent city-immigrant who knows the route from home to the subway and from the subway to work, with mysterious void in the middle. Still, idk how people were driving here before gps maps, what with five-road crossings, and six-lane ‘guess your lane’ junctions with exits in non-obvious directions, and the old districts with streets packed tighter than GPS accuracy (of yesteryear), and the one-way streets going whatever which way.
- netsharc 4y ago
  The "north up" tip I heard from Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear, it makes a lot of sense, if you're going south and the road ahead is closed, and you go for a detour, you know you need to be going south, but if the map keeps spinning around, after several turns you'd (or I would) lose track which direction you're going and which direction the navigation system is trying to take you (in a lot of cases it would be trying to take you back to the original route, although it's closed).
Linda703 4y ago
[dead]
ultra_nick 4y ago
You can retain significant self navigation skills by keeping your gps maps oriented north.
pmarreck 4y ago
Is this really that surprising?
cbanek 4y ago
This kind of sounds like the same thing with cell phones making people not remember phone numbers? It's not that you can't do it, but I think we learn why bother with it when the little box does it. At some subconscious level?
- sbf501 4y ago
  Same goes for LastPass. Sure, I can see a need to remember those numbers/passwords, maybe 2-3 tops, but hundreds? Not until we have some kind of brain-enhancing memory pill.
  - cbanek 4y ago
    Yep!
coolguy132435 4y ago
I've long thought this must be the case. On a regular basis, I fish at a lake in a town 15 minutes from my home, and do not know how to get there without GPS or a friend in the car. Without GPS, I can navigate to places several hours from where I live currently, that I would go frequently in high school, before I had a smart phone or standalone GPS. I kept a printed set of MapQuest directions to popular destinations under my passenger seat in those days. I recently purchased a bare bones GPS for my motorcycle [0] that only displays the direction of the next turn, how far away it is, and roughly how far along the trip I am. I've found that after going to a destination once or twice with that method, it's much more committed to memory. [0] https://global.beeline.co/ https://global.beeline.co/
uenjwMb5Czr5wJ7 4y ago
I'm just over here wondering how they would control for that fact that people who can't self-navigate are more likely to habitually use GPS (rather than cause and effect being the other way around, habitually using GPS leading to an inability to self-navigate, as they posit)? Personally, I use GPS almost every time I drive, so that I get advance notice of slowdowns and congestion. And yet I know the region I live in better than most other drivers I know.
- booboofixer 4y ago
  Strange that this isn’t higher up in the comments. I just moved to a new area, used my maps for the first few times and now know the local area better than the back of my hand. People just really seem to want to bash map tech for some reason.
ajb 4y ago
"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments." -- Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics
jaza 4y ago
Yes! This! I boycott step-by-step GPS navigation, and encourage everyone else to do so too. I enjoy navigating road networks, and don't want that skill of mine eroded. When going somewhere I know, I just go. When going somewhere I don't know, I plan the route in Google Maps prior to setting out, and try to memorise most of it, and stop and check the map now and then when my memory fails me. I refuse to be a mindless spatial robot.
ehnto 4y ago
Anecdotal, but as soon as someone starts giving me directions my brain taps out of the responsibility. I have great spatial awareness, and a decent memory for spatial landmarks. But even if you are giving me directions to somewhere I always go, I will miss turns I know to take because I have subconciously disengaged from the task of pathfinding. I am reminded of the pilot control handover procedure, where you exchange control explicitly by saying "Your airplane", "my airplane". If you were giving me directions and then assume I have got the rest if the way, you have hand the task back over!
brandall10 4y ago
Interesting study on grey matter development of London taxi drivers, who must essentially memorize a map of the city to qualify: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17024677/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17024677/
abvarun226 4y ago
I think I've experienced these effects. Without GPS, it takes me quite a while to decide the best route to a location.
atoav 4y ago
In the city (by foot, on bike) I tend to look up the map and then memorize it. If I forget I look again and memorize again. But I do not tend to switch on navigation and follow, because it distracts me from seeing the places I pass by.
killjoywashere 4y ago
As someone who moves frequently, GPS navigation is life-changing. You can snap into the local opportunities with incredible speed and virtually no stress. My wife needed to reroute while driving. Neither of us had ever been to the new destination before. I just shared the new destination to her car's nav system. She never took her hands off the wheel, and we could all plan our arrival to within a minute from 30 miles out. I know land nav, celestial navigation, LORAN, at one point I knew the math for GPS. yada yada. As a practical matter, GPS is magic. It's the reduction of stress in new places that is such a game changer.
- logifail 4y ago
  One should note that there may be significant negative impact on local communities when GPS systems re-route drivers off major routes onto local/minor roads when there are accidents or delays on the major route.
  - samus 4y ago
    If people have to really use them all the time, then the street network is badly designed because it has too many single points of failure. Also, locals and regular commuters likely already know about these alternative routes. Edit: I used to live in a small city where traffic used to grind to a halt on rainy days or if there were delays or construction works at certain locations.
  - throwaway0a5e 4y ago
    Or when some city planners neuter a main thoroughfare by redesigning it to "current best practices" making the minor roads relatively more competitive.
- yessirwhatever 4y ago
  “The individual is in a dilemma: either he decides to safeguard his freedom of choice, chooses to use traditional , personal, moral, or empirical means, thereby entering into competition with a power against which there is no efficacious defense and before which he must suffer defeat; or he decides to accept technical necessity, in which case he will himself by the victor, but only by submitting irreparably to technical slavery. In effect he has no freedom of choice.” ― Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society
downboots 4y ago
The solution is an adversarial GPS app /j
gigatexal 4y ago
Makes sense. I can’t navigate for shit. Though I never have. As a scout I didn’t have intuition about north and south etc. Now whenever I need to go somewhere unless I know the route relative to where I start by heart I must use GPS/maps.
wjholden 4y ago
Anecdotally speaking, I had to stop depending so much on GPS when I started riding motorcycles. I was surprised at how easily I was able to get around North Carolina, USA using road numbers, signage, and intuition (i.e., I'm going east, so somewhere this small road should intersect 15/501). So, I don't think that "kids these days" negativity towards GPS is entirely justified. Navigating by compass and map isn't trivial, but you can learn it if you need to.
CapsAdmin 4y ago
A typesystem is also much better than me at figuring out what could go wrong with some code. I used to be better at spotting mistakes and writing dynamic code, but ever since I started relying on typesystems I think I got a little worse at it. At least I definitely don't have as much patience dealing with dynamic code anymore. Maybe typesystems negatively impacted my ability to reason about dynamic code? (I'm actually a bit torn on this)
- gwd 4y ago
  > Maybe typesystems negatively impacted my ability to reason about dynamic code? I think type systems definitely make your brain less paranoid about doing all the manual checking that you'd need to do with dynamic code. Whether that's a net positive / negative depends on the overall results: Can / will the mental effort you would have spent being paranoid about dynamic code be usefully spent somewhere else? Are there other side benefits to the effort you have to make with dynamic code that you're losing when you used a type system? Are you less thorough about testing, for instance? Does keeping the entire system in your head mean you are more aware of the overall architecture? Does it help encourage you to keep the architecture simple? Or does the that fact that you have to keep it simple limit the possibilities?
  - CapsAdmin 4y ago
    Exactly, so when replacing type systems with GPS, dynamic code with manual navigation, testing with checking if you're on the right track and architecture with city/land this becomes interesting. In programming I prefer the most sound route to get to my destination. I think typesystems greatly help me with that by giving me warnings and errors when I take the wrong path. In real life I usually only prefer to get to a destination so I use the GPS as I know it can get the fastest route better than me most of the time. If I want to explore a city to find interesting places I don't use a GPS and resort to walking around. When I found an interesting place I will mark it down in google maps and maybe use a GPS next time I go there. If I want to explore an idea with programming the code I write tends to be less sound and more dynamic, when I know what I want I'd refactor the code to be more sound and less dynamic.
- 4y ago
xlii 4y ago
I absolutely agree and confirm that too but then... so what? Myself, I don't feel need to remember a route I'm going to take once or twice in a lifetime. Also in Europe cities aren't easily navigable and one actually has to spend a lot of effort to navigate big city without nav. It doesn't make a lot of sense, especially if city is constantly changing either. If you visit some place every 3 months you're mostly guaranteed that you're going to have to take other route to the destination (construction work, film crew locking roads, infrastructure changes etc.) Nowadays GPS providers react much faster to the changes in infrastructures than city does, too (re-routing due to blockage is good example). Anecdotally - if I drive somewhere as passenger I have no memory of the route neither. In order to get to know place I need to drive there by myself (without GPS) or, best, walk around or study map.
eterevsky 4y ago
One trick that I use to mitigate it is to not rotate the map during the navigation, i.e. always have North on top. This ensures that I keep a basic sense of directions even when following navigation.
lajosbacs 4y ago
My partner and I always argue about the map orientation. I prefer to have north on top while driving, to know more or less 'where I am in the world'. For her it is impossible to use like this, map needs to be oriented in the driving direction.
stephen_g 4y ago
That’s interesting. I always use the GPS for going to destinations I’m unfamiliar with, but I don’t notice this effect at all personally. Perhaps it’s because I tend to intentionally try to navigate without GPS once I have done a route two to four times with the GPS. I guess knowing I want to do that probably puts me in a completely different mindset of actually needing to try to learn the route while the GPS is on (more subconsciously, I don’t tend to make much particular effort), whereas you probably aren’t bothering to do that if you’re expecting to just always use GPS navigation.
agumonkey 4y ago
We need a domain to find balance of tool use vs regression of biological built in skills.
jeffrallen 4y ago
A nice compromise is to remember the computer works for you, and to take the turns that seem right to you and require the GPS to reroute accordingly to help you. Augmented Intelligence, not Artificial Intelligence.
joshspankit 4y ago
Related: I believe my ability to retain an “internal map” of an area was ripped to shreds by non-euclidian games. The first time I turned three corners and ended up in a different place it feels like my brain threw the desk up at the idea that 3D space had euclidean rules, and I’ve been struggling ever since. Of course I still continue to enjoy those types of games, so it’s not like a single game did all the damage.
- edanm 4y ago
  Can you give an example of a game? This sounds intriguing.
  - FumblingBear 4y ago
    Antichamber [0] is a masterclass in this type of spatial disorientation. I really enjoyed the way this game approached puzzle design and how it constantly subverted expectations. Another great one is The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. [1] Initially, the game doesn't play around with spatial disorientation much, but certain branches of the narrative really lean into it in a delightfully satirical way. Finally, Superliminal [2] explores some similar concepts to Antichamber but with a very different approach. There a plenty more examples, but hopefully that gives you a jumping off point to see that gameplay in action. I thoroughly enjoyed all three! [0] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/219890/Antichamber/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/219890/Antichamber/ [1] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1703340/The_Stanley_Parable_Ultra_Deluxe/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1703340/The_Stanley_Parab... [2] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1049410/Superliminal/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1049410/Superliminal/
    - coryfklein 4y ago
      > I believe my ability to retain an “internal map” of an area was ripped to shreds by non-euclidian games. So fascinating to see such opposite recommendations for these games! I'm not sure whether to try them, or run away haha.
      - 4y ago
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
VBprogrammer 4y ago
After buying our new home I made maybe a dozen journeys back and forth using the GPS and realised I actually didn't know the way here yet from our place which isn't even that far away in reality. As soon as I forced myself to find the way without using the GPS it was completely different, I actually figured out the landmarks in my head. We still use the GPS a lot but it's always worth knowing that you don't really know where something is until you can drive there without the GPS.
martopix 4y ago
I mostly use GPS as a way of locating myself on the Google map or another map app. This is mostly because I usually bike or walk, and having a voice telling you things is not really the best way to navigate in that case. However, even so I find it very amusing that the literal only place where I'm very confused by the map is the town where I grew up. I'm very not-used to seeing it from above, can't find the landmarks on the map, and usually I'm not sure where north is exactly. I can't recognize it. Any other place where I lived I have learned on the map first, so it's fine. But not my hometown.
alexb_ 4y ago
Can confirm - I'm young enough to have never used a map. If I did not have a GPS, I wouldn't be able to move anywhere.
Shorel 4y ago
I really don't notice this effect. The first five or ten times, I use the GPS because the path is unusual or new. After that, I know it and don't need GPS anymore. GPS is like the teacher, that shows you the best routes. You learn the lesson and go on.
guerrilla 4y ago
Use it or lose it.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
> When he first moved to Ann Arbor, he found himself unequipped for the brutal winter. He had few belongings, and he needed a blanket. But when he looked up how to get to the local mall, he found it too logistically difficult. “It was just beyond my level of tolerance,” he said. “I did not want to waste my mental energy on figuring out how to go from here to there.” Instead, he walked to a nearby CVS drugstore, bought 10 squares of fabric and a giant stapler, and stapled the squares together to make a blanket. https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-...
duncanmeech 4y ago
Habitual GPS usage also results in you frequently arriving on time.

314 points by goplayoutside 4y ago

throwaway22032 4y ago

I figure this is just one of those "do you want it" things. I want to speak German, I don't want to use Google Translate. I want to know where Hackney is, I don't want to just plug it into Citymapper. Works for me. Some people don't like self actualization, so be it.

bilinguliar 4y ago

Comment about IDE.

BrentOzar 4y ago

Habitual calculator usage negatively impacts basic mathematics skills, film at 11.

acidburnNSA 4y ago
And I'm guessing habitual recall via Google query negatively impacts memory recall skills. News at 11:30.
- thewarrior 4y ago
  I have been wondering recently whether this is a bad thing. Because having the right ideas in memory is often required for making creative leaps. Relying too much on google can actually inhibit creativity.
  - acidburnNSA 4y ago
    I used to worry that it was bad, but now I've embraced it. I try to know just enough to synthesize new thoughts but can defer to Google for details.
  - throwawaysleep 4y ago
    On the other hand, Google lets you actually find information rather than just wishing you had it. https://imgur.io/pumgE https://imgur.io/pumgE Do I remember a lower percentage of the facts I have encountered in life than others? Almost certainly. But I also bet that I have encountered vastly more as a result.
    - nonrandomstring 4y ago
      > Google lets you actually find information rather than just wishing you had it. Correct. And that's a problem. The "wishing you had it" part is actually really important. Creativity and understanding isn't just assembling a jigsaw puzzle of discrete information facts. Holding together a mental model, including many partial and missing pieces of information, is how innovative leaps occur. A Google driven life, treading over popular, permitted pathways is comfortable and convenient but requires only some small fraction of the adult human brain. More is not necessarily more when it comes to information.
  - potatoman22 4y ago
    I don't think it's bad overall. Web search has essentially extended our recall abilities to everything that's easily searchable if you have a device on hand.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Usage of digital clocks and particularly smartphones leads to degeneration in analog time telling ability. News at whenever the notification shows up on your cell phone.
someweirdperson 4y ago
Only arithmetics skills, not basic mathematics skills in general.
tshaddox 4y ago
Habitual flint and pyrite usage negatively impacts basic bow drill fire making skills.

chippytea 4y ago

One of the things I like to do when I go somewhere new is try to drive (or often cycle) back home without using my phone. I get lost sometimes, but I feel a silly sense of achievement when I make it back home without checking my phone. I enjoy the challange and I also learn a lot about my local area. There are many businesses in my city that I discovered only because I was trying to memorise a route.

avl999 4y ago

I am practically incapable of navigating without GPS/Google maps.

ghaff 4y ago
Well, you have to prep. And, to be honest, if you're by yourself you're probably going to be balancing a map on your lap someplace if it's not straightforward. There's also the old movie/TV trope where, typically, the guy refuses to stop at a gas station to ask for directions if they're lost. Which has now (mostly) joined the trope of not being able to reach someone just because they're not in the physical location you expect them to be.

nso95 4y ago

It's true, but how does one deal with it?

kelnos 4y ago
Easy: use GPS less. Maybe rely on it for your first trip somewhere new, but after that, try to navigate by memory. And even when you've gone somewhere new, try to find your way back home without the GPS. For locations that you frequent, don't use the GPS at all. Often I'll do a quick GPS check for places like that just to see if my normal route is clear of bad traffic, and then travel without it running. Yes, you'll get lost occasionally, but that's ok. You'll still have the GPS if you get hopelessly lost and give up.
- devchix 4y ago
  Yes but a major part of wayfinding now is to route around traffic. I know my way to work every day but still turn on GPS because I don't know where accident and detours might be happening.

abnry 4y ago

I enjoy navigating without gps. I can always memorize most of the way there as it is usually just following main roads. It is the last portion that can be hardest. I like to think of directions in terms of "topological complexity". If it is just off a highway or off of a road off the highway it is easy to navigate to. Has nothing to do with how far away it is or how familiar I am with the area. Similar to this is the fact that it is always easier to navigate home than to a new place. In the former, you are aiming for the web of roads that you recognize. In the latter, it is a specific point.

zxcvbn4038 4y ago
I’m more the opposite - I spent decades driving without GPS, and I got to see very little of where I went because I’m trying to read a map or atlas, not crash into anyone, and cross six lanes of traffic because the exit is on the opposite side of the highway. I drove the equivalent of twelve times around the equator and it was all a blur. With GPS I can actually look beyond the car in front of me and enjoy seeing what I am driving through. In recent years I’ve started setting the Avoid Highways feature and taking back roads everywhere - no traffic, no cops, no people driving crazy, lots of wildlife, lots of sights, cheap gas, etc. generally only adds an hour to my travel time.
- matwood 4y ago
  I agree on all points. I remember driving from Paris to Epinal using printed out directions. At some point after the 15 roundabout we had no idea where we were. Luckily we were are to speak with some nice people to help guide us the rest of the way, but we almost missed the time we had to be at our destination.
  - paganel 4y ago
    To be fair French deep-country roundabouts are the work of the devil. Me and my SO did a cross-European car-journey a few years ago and we managed to get all the way from Bucharest to France just fine without using any GPS. And then we got into the French roundabouts. I gave up close to Orleans. We wanted to get off the highway and use a smaller road, for sightseeing, it's only that I literally re-created this infamous scene [1] with the only difference that there were 3 or 4 roundabouts in quick succession involved, not a big one. I almost had tears of frustration, I'm not exaggerating, but thanks to my SO who started co-piloting me with "take the second exit in the next roundabout" and stuff like that we managed to get out of it all. After a few days driving through France I think I managed to get the hang of those roundabouts without using GPS, but it wasn't easy. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAgX6qlJEMc

dsomers 4y ago

archhn 4y ago
I think the poster is interested in this case as an example of how delegating a task to technology leads to skill atrophy. We do it more and more every year. Technology may be making us stupid. It all leads to WALL-Eesque retardation and decadence.
ramraj07 4y ago
I’m sure most of us have noticed it and commented on it but proving it is different. Like the difference between postulating the Higgs boson and provings its existence.

DaltonCoffee 4y ago

"Every extension of mankind, especially technological extensions, has the effect of amputating or modifying some other extension[…] The extension of a technology like the automobile “amputates” the need for a highly developed walking culture, which in turn causes cities and countries to develop in different ways. The telephone extends the voice, but also amputates the art of penmanship gained through regular correspondence. ways.” — Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man Love this quote, and many others by MM. Utterly blows my mind how we seem to be failing to apply and extend his teachings to help understand this modernity beta test we're participating in.

tootie 4y ago
I think "obviate" is a better term than "amputate". I mean, who the hell cares about penmanship? Absolutely useless skill.
- lock-the-spock 4y ago
  While I empathise with your position I can totally see how others might not. Letter writing is a specific skill to provide a dense and clear message. You have to prepare this message in your head first as you cannot (attractively) eliminate what you wrote already unless you redo the whole letter. Im sure many people today would have benefitted from more occasions to hone thinking and preparation ahead of expressing views or opinions. Similarly you could say remembering phone numbers is a useless skill that many had pre smartphones - you just knew your 30 or so most used numbers. Now we all depend on our phones and once the battery is dead many people don't seem to know any number by heart.
  - jimmaswell 4y ago
    > provide a dense and clear message There is Twitter for that
    - kixiQu 4y ago
      If I handwrite a letter, I'm filtering before and while I write to reduce all the nonsense that might pass through my head down to something I hope will be of interest to the recipient. If I tweet, I can shoot out all of that nonsense to the world, secure in the knowledge that the filtering labor will be done in combination by some subset of potential recipients (whose choices to engage or not will provide the fodder that the Twitter feed-building algorithm can use to determine whether it's passed the filter). This might then indicate that a skill that might be atrophying is the ability to filter one's own writing for relevance/value, not just to produce it in cursive. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine what other signs they would look for to confirm or disconfirm this hypothetical atrophy.

Bolkan 4y ago

On a related note, playing far cry 2 without using the handheld map and walking everywhere did wonders for my spatial memory. The game is gorgeous and full of tiny details so it isn't as boring as it might sound. Each mission starts with an npc giving you the location of your target (safehouse 2 miles east of shanty town, outpost south of lumber yard). Sun can be used as a compass (when it's not raining). After a while you start to recognize the landmarks and don't need the map anymore.

daleharvey 4y ago

I spend a lot of time outdoors / hillwalking / mountain climbing in Scotland and it is quite fustrating and in my opinion quite dangerous how technophobic the standard advice given is. Almost universally guides and mountain rescue people will advise that people should carry and have knowledge of how to use a map and compass, inform that a phone with GPS is to be used as a backup with no advice given on how to use it. Navigating with a map and compass is a difficult skill that takes a lot of practise, Scottish munros are very regularly subject to almost zero visibility where even the most advanced navigator would have difficulty. Almost none of the receipients of this advice actually want to navigate, they want to be able to follow a route for duration of their journey. A task that is very simply done with a phone if someone has been given the correct instruction. When people have an appropriate route downloaded on their phone to work offline ensuring they have enough charge and suitable backup devices alongside told someone their route and expected time of return they have covered most of the situations that get people in trouble in terms of navigation. Instead they are routinely told to bring a map and compass by people who generally seem to be enthusiastic volunteers who have a deep interest specifically around navigation.

ghaff 4y ago
I dunno. >and suitable backup devices First of all, I wonder how many people actually have suitable backup devices. Secondly, stuff does happen. There are a lot of circumstances where a very simple compass and map--and knowledge that doesn't require elite M&C navigation skills can be the difference between "Um, I have no idea where I am and how to get home" and "Damn, I guess I need to do this the old fashioned way." Yes, there are conditions and locations where the "old fashioned way" is really difficult to do. But often there are trails and some visibility and you just need some basic ability to read a map and know what direction you're headed in. Do I bother when I know an area and the weather is good? Nope. But for anything more advanced, I carry a map and compass as pretty cheap and easy insurance.
- daleharvey 4y ago
  > First of all, I wonder how many people actually have suitable backup devices. Virtually every group of people will have multiple backup devices, for people going solo it something that should (but isn't) recommended. > Secondly, stuff does happen. Stuff does and in every case if you want to follow a route having a little dot that shows you exactly where you are in relation to that route is better than having a map and compass. I am not sure why you are replying to my point as if it is not a choice for people to carry a phone with them but somewhat makes the point. A properly prepared phone is a map and compass, it does everything a map and compass can do and then adds an extra useful feature of "and this is exactly where you are"

nickjj 4y ago

Independent of GPS I think people are built differently and can understand 3D (first person) vs 2D (top down) worlds in different ways. I know someone who can go anywhere once without GPS and recall directions 10 years later even if they never drove near that area again. It's like their memory can recall it the same as the first time they went there. At the same time watching them type on a keyboard is about the same as what it must have been like to witness humans using basic tools for the first time. I've always been bad with driving directions, the idea of navigating in 3D from the first person doesn't mesh with how I think for recalling directions but if I look at a top down 2D map and split things into a grid then it's not too bad. I only just started using GPS the other week but I feel like it has helped me retain information a lot better, I can visualize the route in my mind and trace the turns with street names in a way that I could never do before. Interestingly enough I don't think it's necessarily first person vs top down on its own too. I've played a lot of FPS games in the past with games that never had a top down map and I can still run through them mentally like 15-20 years later. I don't know what it is, it doesn't make sense to be tuned for navigating a virtual world vs physical world but I do think GPS clicks some checkbox in my brain that makes it be perceived as virtualized even though it's mapping the physical world.

MiddleEndian 4y ago
Anecdotally, if I'm walking or taking the train, I like to use top-down, north-oriented GPS. If I'm driving, I like the first person view with turn-by-turn directions. But I don't drive often.

throwaway675309 4y ago

Well duh, there was a study on London cabbies who had to take a test known as "the knowledge", and it was found that they had significantly more growth in their hippocampus. So obviously the reverse would probably be true. I remember I used to chunk numbers in 3 to 4 digit groupings because back in the day that was how I naturally memorized phone numbers, successive generations probably can't rely on that tactic as much simply because there's so little need to retain the phone numbers in memory with the invention of smart phones.

noirbot 4y ago
Sure, but that feels like an equivalence of just saying "people without a college degree are less mentally developed than those who do." Memorizing the street system of a city the size of London is obviously hard. But is it important to actually do so in a world where it's not essential? I feel like the implication of a lot of these articles is "people aren't learning X thing that's not essential now, and instead are learning TikTok Memes." Which may not be wrong, but how much of a problem actually is that? Obviously, a century ago, there was no slack for almost anyone to not carry their weight in society. Everyone needed to know how to farm and start a fire, and plenty of other things most people don't know any more. Pre-teens had to work important jobs because otherwise people didn't eat. Obviously things have swung away from that, but the question is how far away from that is a good thing vs. just allowing people to indulge in vices.

extr 4y ago

Very believable, I've noticed this effect myself. When I've moved to a new area, if I use GPS exclusively to get around it takes me months to learn the names of roads and do "route planning" in my head. Versus very quickly, within a few days/weeks if I only refer to GPS when legitimately lost or unsure. The thing is, why bother? I always have my phone. If I'm within a few miles of my house, I can figure out where I'm going, but maybe it takes me a little longer, and I don't come up with the optimal route, and now I and have the risk of getting caught in unexpected change in traffic patterns. If I'm somewhere unfamiliar, spatial memory is irrelevant and I have to rely on it regardless. Actually I feel like GPS makes me a better than navigator. Having the "top down" view makes it feel like a video game, and that's one area where I have a ton of practice looking at a 2D map, relating it to 3D environment, and so on.

ghaff 4y ago
>I always have my phone. Until you don't. It's probably a generational thing but I tend to have non-electronic backups when it's relatively cheap and easy to do so. And for relatively routine places I walk/drive, I much prefer to have the route in my head.
noirbot 4y ago
I think a lot of this ends up behind how you learn navigation. I love GPS as a way to build up heuristics of how to get places in a new city/from a new location. I find I mostly learn routes by visual memory and not by street names/distances/number of blocks. I know to turn at a specific building/business, and not because it's 5th street or a specific train station. If you're someone who learns your routes in terms of facts/numbers, then I can see GPS hurting your memory, but in my case, the GPS won't tell me to turn at the Walmart, or get off at the train station with the green tile. So after a few GPS trips, I've learned the route in the way my brain will remember. This especially helps when I don't know the traffic patterns or alternate routes that a navigation app does. These days, for routes I don't know really well, or have high traffic variance, I'll check GPS to verify a route, and then use the route without using the app directly.
wtallis 4y ago
> The thing is, why bother? I always have my phone. Relying exclusively on the phone's turn-by-turn directions without having any spatial awareness of your own or knowledge about the planned routes has a strong tendency to make you do stupid, dangerous stuff in traffic any time there's the slightest ambiguity or delay in the phone's instructions to you. This is mitigated somewhat by newer cars that can show you the map on a display that's not too small or too far out of the way of where your eyes should be pointing. But the responsible way to prevent those problems is to pull up the directions and study them for a minute before releasing the parking brake—that way, the phone is more reminding you than controlling you.

zitterbewegung 4y ago

I only use gps to get places where I don’t know where to go but after that I stop using it . But this begs the question why is losing this is bad when we can use our brains for something completely different or make peoples jobs more productive

kuschku 4y ago

I just use Google Maps as actual map, not as navigation. That means I use it to find where I am, look at the roads, and look at where I want to go, and plan the route on the map myself. This helps me to stay oriented when I'm not using a maps app as well, because I already know which roads intersect with which, where, and how to take them to get from A to B. Sadly, Google Maps does everything they can to prevent you from doing this, e.g. not showing street names at all unless you zoom in to ridiculous levels (and often not even then) as well as not showing you which roads are one-way, which roads allow bicycles, etc. That's why I mostly rely on Open Street Map and similar actual maps. Also, if I've got additional time to get somewhere, I'll get lost on purpose, taking roads I don't know yet, then looking at the maps to figure out where I am (which is super useful to discover hidden paths and shortcuts).

qbasic_forever 4y ago
I use Google maps in exactly the same way and have the same complaint about street names not being visible. Sometimes I'll drop in to street view at an important intersection to see what landmarks pop out, like a certain gas station or business on the corner where I need to turn. It's so funny when I'm with someone and navigating, they see me using Google maps and then are bewildered when I don't turn on the turn by turn yet still get where we're going. They almost can't believe it's possible.
- abruzzi 4y ago
  my peeve is that if you bring up the terrain map, you see topo lines, but they disappear the moment you get close enough to actually read the elevation of the lines.
  - boldlybold 4y ago
    This has literally been a bug in google maps for going on 10 years and I'm amazed nothing has been done about it. Terrain could be SO MUCH more useful!
  - nicbou 4y ago

theonemind 4y ago

I had no navigation skill before GPS. Now, I can have no navigation skill and still get somewhere!

civilized 4y ago

Yeah, but it frees up more space in my brain for dank memes, so who's to say I'm not better off?

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Yeah no kidding. I've met some people who even use their GPS to get to their local grocery store. I wouldn't trust them to self-navigate out of a cul-de-sac.

imgabe 4y ago
In cities with a lot of traffic GPS is useful even for routine trips because it will help route you around traffic jams.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  If you're in your own neighborhood then you should be able to re-route yourself once you see traffic ahead. Personally, I don't ever use GPS unless I'm lost. When I'm going someplace new I plan the route using mapping software before I get in the car. I sketch a quick map of the important parts of the routes (particularly street names, major intersections, exit numbers, etc.) Sketching this map commits the major details to memory, then I put the map in my pocket. If I need to refresh my memory then I'll pull over to check my sketched map. I only need to use GPS if I find myself outside of my map. In these cases I'll pull over to use the GPS to locate myself and plot a route back to my planned route. I never use turn-by-turn directions, because I think driving like that is unsafe. I know this is unusual. Somebody once called me a psychopath because I don't listen to music or the radio while driving either. I don't want to zone out while driving, mindlessly following turn-by-turn directions or listening to some song. I think everybody else is just too cavalier about distractions while driving.
  - spike021 4y ago
    >If you're in your own neighborhood then you should be able to re-route yourself once you see traffic ahead. How does this answer the other commenter's point? If the grocery store is 2 miles away, wouldn't you rather be routed an alternative route at one mile distance away by GPS that "knows" there's terrible traffic congestion the remaining two blocks of the current route? Especially if those two blocks are after a couple of turns which block your view of them?

Havoc 4y ago

Reminds me of the cellphone induced lack of ability to focus for long timespans. Seems a lot of things are use it or lose it

User23 4y ago

Habitual crutch use reduces leg strength[1]. [1] Socrates.

felipelalli 4y ago

Don't say! I think we have a Sherlock Holmes here.

aaron695 4y ago

aasasd 4y ago

I used routing on my phone, but without the instructions, just the map, route and the GPS position marker—plus I had the map always with north on top, no rotation and no ‘3d’. This arrangement actually taught me about what is where in this city and how that looks from above. Otherwise I would be practically like a recent city-immigrant who knows the route from home to the subway and from the subway to work, with mysterious void in the middle. Still, idk how people were driving here before gps maps, what with five-road crossings, and six-lane ‘guess your lane’ junctions with exits in non-obvious directions, and the old districts with streets packed tighter than GPS accuracy (of yesteryear), and the one-way streets going whatever which way.

netsharc 4y ago
The "north up" tip I heard from Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear, it makes a lot of sense, if you're going south and the road ahead is closed, and you go for a detour, you know you need to be going south, but if the map keeps spinning around, after several turns you'd (or I would) lose track which direction you're going and which direction the navigation system is trying to take you (in a lot of cases it would be trying to take you back to the original route, although it's closed).

Linda703 4y ago

[dead]

ultra_nick 4y ago

You can retain significant self navigation skills by keeping your gps maps oriented north.

pmarreck 4y ago

Is this really that surprising?

cbanek 4y ago

This kind of sounds like the same thing with cell phones making people not remember phone numbers? It's not that you can't do it, but I think we learn why bother with it when the little box does it. At some subconscious level?

sbf501 4y ago
Same goes for LastPass. Sure, I can see a need to remember those numbers/passwords, maybe 2-3 tops, but hundreds? Not until we have some kind of brain-enhancing memory pill.
- cbanek 4y ago
  Yep!

coolguy132435 4y ago

I've long thought this must be the case. On a regular basis, I fish at a lake in a town 15 minutes from my home, and do not know how to get there without GPS or a friend in the car. Without GPS, I can navigate to places several hours from where I live currently, that I would go frequently in high school, before I had a smart phone or standalone GPS. I kept a printed set of MapQuest directions to popular destinations under my passenger seat in those days. I recently purchased a bare bones GPS for my motorcycle [0] that only displays the direction of the next turn, how far away it is, and roughly how far along the trip I am. I've found that after going to a destination once or twice with that method, it's much more committed to memory. [0] https://global.beeline.co/ https://global.beeline.co/

uenjwMb5Czr5wJ7 4y ago

I'm just over here wondering how they would control for that fact that people who can't self-navigate are more likely to habitually use GPS (rather than cause and effect being the other way around, habitually using GPS leading to an inability to self-navigate, as they posit)? Personally, I use GPS almost every time I drive, so that I get advance notice of slowdowns and congestion. And yet I know the region I live in better than most other drivers I know.

booboofixer 4y ago
Strange that this isn’t higher up in the comments. I just moved to a new area, used my maps for the first few times and now know the local area better than the back of my hand. People just really seem to want to bash map tech for some reason.

ajb 4y ago

"It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments." -- Alfred North Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics

jaza 4y ago

Yes! This! I boycott step-by-step GPS navigation, and encourage everyone else to do so too. I enjoy navigating road networks, and don't want that skill of mine eroded. When going somewhere I know, I just go. When going somewhere I don't know, I plan the route in Google Maps prior to setting out, and try to memorise most of it, and stop and check the map now and then when my memory fails me. I refuse to be a mindless spatial robot.

ehnto 4y ago

Anecdotal, but as soon as someone starts giving me directions my brain taps out of the responsibility. I have great spatial awareness, and a decent memory for spatial landmarks. But even if you are giving me directions to somewhere I always go, I will miss turns I know to take because I have subconciously disengaged from the task of pathfinding. I am reminded of the pilot control handover procedure, where you exchange control explicitly by saying "Your airplane", "my airplane". If you were giving me directions and then assume I have got the rest if the way, you have hand the task back over!

brandall10 4y ago

Interesting study on grey matter development of London taxi drivers, who must essentially memorize a map of the city to qualify: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17024677/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17024677/

abvarun226 4y ago

I think I've experienced these effects. Without GPS, it takes me quite a while to decide the best route to a location.

atoav 4y ago

In the city (by foot, on bike) I tend to look up the map and then memorize it. If I forget I look again and memorize again. But I do not tend to switch on navigation and follow, because it distracts me from seeing the places I pass by.

killjoywashere 4y ago

As someone who moves frequently, GPS navigation is life-changing. You can snap into the local opportunities with incredible speed and virtually no stress. My wife needed to reroute while driving. Neither of us had ever been to the new destination before. I just shared the new destination to her car's nav system. She never took her hands off the wheel, and we could all plan our arrival to within a minute from 30 miles out. I know land nav, celestial navigation, LORAN, at one point I knew the math for GPS. yada yada. As a practical matter, GPS is magic. It's the reduction of stress in new places that is such a game changer.

logifail 4y ago
One should note that there may be significant negative impact on local communities when GPS systems re-route drivers off major routes onto local/minor roads when there are accidents or delays on the major route.
- samus 4y ago
  If people have to really use them all the time, then the street network is badly designed because it has too many single points of failure. Also, locals and regular commuters likely already know about these alternative routes. Edit: I used to live in a small city where traffic used to grind to a halt on rainy days or if there were delays or construction works at certain locations.
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago
  Or when some city planners neuter a main thoroughfare by redesigning it to "current best practices" making the minor roads relatively more competitive.
yessirwhatever 4y ago
“The individual is in a dilemma: either he decides to safeguard his freedom of choice, chooses to use traditional , personal, moral, or empirical means, thereby entering into competition with a power against which there is no efficacious defense and before which he must suffer defeat; or he decides to accept technical necessity, in which case he will himself by the victor, but only by submitting irreparably to technical slavery. In effect he has no freedom of choice.” ― Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society

downboots 4y ago

The solution is an adversarial GPS app /j

gigatexal 4y ago

Makes sense. I can’t navigate for shit. Though I never have. As a scout I didn’t have intuition about north and south etc. Now whenever I need to go somewhere unless I know the route relative to where I start by heart I must use GPS/maps.

wjholden 4y ago

Anecdotally speaking, I had to stop depending so much on GPS when I started riding motorcycles. I was surprised at how easily I was able to get around North Carolina, USA using road numbers, signage, and intuition (i.e., I'm going east, so somewhere this small road should intersect 15/501). So, I don't think that "kids these days" negativity towards GPS is entirely justified. Navigating by compass and map isn't trivial, but you can learn it if you need to.

CapsAdmin 4y ago

A typesystem is also much better than me at figuring out what could go wrong with some code. I used to be better at spotting mistakes and writing dynamic code, but ever since I started relying on typesystems I think I got a little worse at it. At least I definitely don't have as much patience dealing with dynamic code anymore. Maybe typesystems negatively impacted my ability to reason about dynamic code? (I'm actually a bit torn on this)

gwd 4y ago
> Maybe typesystems negatively impacted my ability to reason about dynamic code? I think type systems definitely make your brain less paranoid about doing all the manual checking that you'd need to do with dynamic code. Whether that's a net positive / negative depends on the overall results: Can / will the mental effort you would have spent being paranoid about dynamic code be usefully spent somewhere else? Are there other side benefits to the effort you have to make with dynamic code that you're losing when you used a type system? Are you less thorough about testing, for instance? Does keeping the entire system in your head mean you are more aware of the overall architecture? Does it help encourage you to keep the architecture simple? Or does the that fact that you have to keep it simple limit the possibilities?
- CapsAdmin 4y ago
  Exactly, so when replacing type systems with GPS, dynamic code with manual navigation, testing with checking if you're on the right track and architecture with city/land this becomes interesting. In programming I prefer the most sound route to get to my destination. I think typesystems greatly help me with that by giving me warnings and errors when I take the wrong path. In real life I usually only prefer to get to a destination so I use the GPS as I know it can get the fastest route better than me most of the time. If I want to explore a city to find interesting places I don't use a GPS and resort to walking around. When I found an interesting place I will mark it down in google maps and maybe use a GPS next time I go there. If I want to explore an idea with programming the code I write tends to be less sound and more dynamic, when I know what I want I'd refactor the code to be more sound and less dynamic.
4y ago

xlii 4y ago

I absolutely agree and confirm that too but then... so what? Myself, I don't feel need to remember a route I'm going to take once or twice in a lifetime. Also in Europe cities aren't easily navigable and one actually has to spend a lot of effort to navigate big city without nav. It doesn't make a lot of sense, especially if city is constantly changing either. If you visit some place every 3 months you're mostly guaranteed that you're going to have to take other route to the destination (construction work, film crew locking roads, infrastructure changes etc.) Nowadays GPS providers react much faster to the changes in infrastructures than city does, too (re-routing due to blockage is good example). Anecdotally - if I drive somewhere as passenger I have no memory of the route neither. In order to get to know place I need to drive there by myself (without GPS) or, best, walk around or study map.

eterevsky 4y ago

One trick that I use to mitigate it is to not rotate the map during the navigation, i.e. always have North on top. This ensures that I keep a basic sense of directions even when following navigation.

lajosbacs 4y ago

My partner and I always argue about the map orientation. I prefer to have north on top while driving, to know more or less 'where I am in the world'. For her it is impossible to use like this, map needs to be oriented in the driving direction.

stephen_g 4y ago

That’s interesting. I always use the GPS for going to destinations I’m unfamiliar with, but I don’t notice this effect at all personally. Perhaps it’s because I tend to intentionally try to navigate without GPS once I have done a route two to four times with the GPS. I guess knowing I want to do that probably puts me in a completely different mindset of actually needing to try to learn the route while the GPS is on (more subconsciously, I don’t tend to make much particular effort), whereas you probably aren’t bothering to do that if you’re expecting to just always use GPS navigation.

agumonkey 4y ago

We need a domain to find balance of tool use vs regression of biological built in skills.

jeffrallen 4y ago

A nice compromise is to remember the computer works for you, and to take the turns that seem right to you and require the GPS to reroute accordingly to help you. Augmented Intelligence, not Artificial Intelligence.

joshspankit 4y ago

Related: I believe my ability to retain an “internal map” of an area was ripped to shreds by non-euclidian games. The first time I turned three corners and ended up in a different place it feels like my brain threw the desk up at the idea that 3D space had euclidean rules, and I’ve been struggling ever since. Of course I still continue to enjoy those types of games, so it’s not like a single game did all the damage.

edanm 4y ago
Can you give an example of a game? This sounds intriguing.
- FumblingBear 4y ago
  Antichamber [0] is a masterclass in this type of spatial disorientation. I really enjoyed the way this game approached puzzle design and how it constantly subverted expectations. Another great one is The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe. [1] Initially, the game doesn't play around with spatial disorientation much, but certain branches of the narrative really lean into it in a delightfully satirical way. Finally, Superliminal [2] explores some similar concepts to Antichamber but with a very different approach. There a plenty more examples, but hopefully that gives you a jumping off point to see that gameplay in action. I thoroughly enjoyed all three! [0] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/219890/Antichamber/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/219890/Antichamber/ [1] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1703340/The_Stanley_Parable_Ultra_Deluxe/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1703340/The_Stanley_Parab... [2] - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1049410/Superliminal/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1049410/Superliminal/
  - coryfklein 4y ago
    > I believe my ability to retain an “internal map” of an area was ripped to shreds by non-euclidian games. So fascinating to see such opposite recommendations for these games! I'm not sure whether to try them, or run away haha.
    - 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

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VBprogrammer 4y ago

After buying our new home I made maybe a dozen journeys back and forth using the GPS and realised I actually didn't know the way here yet from our place which isn't even that far away in reality. As soon as I forced myself to find the way without using the GPS it was completely different, I actually figured out the landmarks in my head. We still use the GPS a lot but it's always worth knowing that you don't really know where something is until you can drive there without the GPS.

martopix 4y ago

I mostly use GPS as a way of locating myself on the Google map or another map app. This is mostly because I usually bike or walk, and having a voice telling you things is not really the best way to navigate in that case. However, even so I find it very amusing that the literal only place where I'm very confused by the map is the town where I grew up. I'm very not-used to seeing it from above, can't find the landmarks on the map, and usually I'm not sure where north is exactly. I can't recognize it. Any other place where I lived I have learned on the map first, so it's fine. But not my hometown.

alexb_ 4y ago

Can confirm - I'm young enough to have never used a map. If I did not have a GPS, I wouldn't be able to move anywhere.

Shorel 4y ago

I really don't notice this effect. The first five or ten times, I use the GPS because the path is unusual or new. After that, I know it and don't need GPS anymore. GPS is like the teacher, that shows you the best routes. You learn the lesson and go on.

guerrilla 4y ago

Use it or lose it.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

> When he first moved to Ann Arbor, he found himself unequipped for the brutal winter. He had few belongings, and he needed a blanket. But when he looked up how to get to the local mall, he found it too logistically difficult. “It was just beyond my level of tolerance,” he said. “I did not want to waste my mental energy on figuring out how to go from here to there.” Instead, he walked to a nearby CVS drugstore, bought 10 squares of fabric and a giant stapler, and stapled the squares together to make a blanket. https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-wins-the-fields-medal-20220705/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/june-huh-high-school-dropout-...

duncanmeech 4y ago

Habitual GPS usage also results in you frequently arriving on time.