
Ditch the GPS - lelf
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ditch-the-gps-its-ruining-your-brain/2019/06/05/29a3170e-87af-11e9-98c1-e945ae5db8fb_story.html
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dmytroi
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.

~~~
barrkel
I use the same argument for people learning how to ride motorbikes when they
live in London or another urban area: start on a scooter, so you negotiate
traffic and learn positioning without worrying about gears and clutch, and are
able to make tight turns without fear of dropping a bike.

Once you're confident in traffic, switching to a geared bike is much easier.
Learn one big new thing at a time.

~~~
gonzo
OTOH, my father wouldn’t let me get a driver’s license until I could drive the
semi-truck mounted (3 axle) water truck with the 5x4 transmission (20 forward
gears, 4 reverse, but you don’t use them all), air brakes (but no brakes on
the steering axle), no power steering and about 16 gauges (oil temp for
engine, both transmissions, both drive axles, air pressure, oil pressure,
water temp, pyrometer, turbo boost, tach, speedometer, voltage, etc.)

The splitter box (the 4 speed) had a reversed pattern from the main box (the 5
speed).

Fully-loaded with 3,000 gallons of water, 500 gallons of diesel and 1,000’ of
drill pipe it weighed about 55,000 lbs (GVW).

It was complex for a 16 year-old.

~~~
wadkar
Sounds like your dad was a lot of fun! I “cheated” my uncle by telling him I
already know how to drive and took his stick shift to the neighboring ground
to play on my own :)

~~~
jeffrallen
I suspect your uncle knew your game, and was giving you the experience he knew
you wanted. :)

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Cougher
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
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
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)

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unsignedint
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
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

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kristianc
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
> 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
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
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
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).

~~~
jacquesm
An audiobook is an immersive experience, it engages your imagination (if the
audiobook is any good at all), listening to the radio (assuming they don't
read well written full length books on the radio) is not.

~~~
TillE
Radio dramas have been extremely popular in many places since forever. So have
"books on tape". It's utterly bizarre to make these kinds of accusations.

~~~
jacquesm
What's bizarre about it? Driving is a full-time occupation, not a part-time
occupation. If you have to do it do it responsibly.

In complex situations listening to audiobooks is a dangerous affair, in simple
situations it may improve attention but simple situations can turn complex in
a hurry in a moving vehicle.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29223795](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29223795)

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thdrdt
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
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
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
Google maps can also download offline maps for different areas:
[https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838](https://support.google.com/maps/answer/6291838)

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

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

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upofadown
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
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
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-de...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/driving-test-
changes-4-december-2017)

------
fit2rule
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.)

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dt3ft
Archive link: [http://archive.is/6D3iB](http://archive.is/6D3iB)

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myself248
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
Knowing that computers are not to be obeyed but used as tools should be part
of human ed.

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tsjq
Paywall bypass : [https://outline.com/muUPmD](https://outline.com/muUPmD)

