
Kids Who Get Driven Everywhere Don't Know Where They're Going (2012) - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2012/05/kids-who-get-driven-everywhere-dont-know-where-theyre-going/1943
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vegetablepotpie
I grew up in a suburban community. Nothing was in walking distance and
everywhere I went, I was driven. When my mom asked me where the roads were in
our city, I listed all the ones I could remember, but I listed none in order
and missed a lot. My mom was perplexed, she said “how could you not know where
the roads are? I drive you everywhere.” I think we don’t realize that the
amount of control we have over a situation changes our memory of the
situation. There’s no reason to remember if there’s no impact of knowing,
despite being present in the same situation. I think this can answer why
online classes are hard, why some students don’t learn from lectures and why
there’s wisdom in the phrase “you learn by doing”.

~~~
DonHopkins
The first time I drove my own car to the mall and parked it deep in the huge
parking lot, I went in, did some shopping, then realized that I had completely
spaced on remembering where I parked, because every other time in my life,
whoever was driving took care of that for me, and I just followed them back to
their car.

I'm sure there were times I remembered where my driver had parked, but until
the first time I drove to the mall myself, I wasn't in the habit of
conscientiously making note of where I parked.

~~~
tibbydudeza
I normally take a photo or press the remote key fob to see where the heck I
parked my car (the turn signals flash)>

Currently there is a big learner driver sign on my back window for my kid so
it helps a now.

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wirthjason
To rephrase the title, “people who don’t do things themselves don’t learn to
do things.”

Growing up in the Chicago suburbs I never knew where I was going until about
age 15 my Dad got me a giant laminated map of the city and surrounding areas
about 4’ x 5’. I hung it on my wall and it was my job to give directions.
Until being forced to learn I never cared. The article is unsurprising. It’s
like learning a new programming language, you don’t learn it by _watching_
YouTube videos, you learn by _writing_ code.

~~~
ecspike
I was designated navigator on road trips with my dad from like 8 or 10. As a
adult, I was surprised to see friends using GPS every time to get to their
"favorite restaurant" (located a few blocks from their house).

It's a thing that makes ride share a bit maddening because it's clear when
folks can't reason about their situation versus blindly following the GPS
instructions.

Edit: Riding public transit to middle and high school helped a lot too.

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kawsper
I believe that, I use a website called Citystrides that tracks my runs from
Runkeeper and plots all my runs onto a map, the idea is to run your whole
city, this is my map now:
[https://imgur.com/S3sTSml](https://imgur.com/S3sTSml)

Before a run, I will roughly sketch out my route and then run it.

Before I started I only knew the main roads, now I know areas I didn't know
before, and I know a lot of the shortcuts and how everything is connected.

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nchelluri
> In sum, as exposure to auto traffic volumes and speed decreases, a child’s
> sense of threat goes down, and his/her ability to establish a richer
> connection and appreciation for the community rises.

makes sense, intuitively. if you can go play and explore, the memories will
reflect it. hide and seek, tag, capture the flag, scrimmages of
hockey/basketball/football/soccer will take place. this is a fundamentally
fertile area for a young brain to take intellectual nourishment from its
environment.

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james_s_tayler
I drive myself everywhere and still don't know where I'm going.

~~~
nchelluri
i chuckled. do you use gps?

~~~
james_s_tayler
It's for the explicit reason I refuse to use it, basically. So I at least know
the routes I take frequently and have a chance to learn new ones from time to
time.

I remember years ago when I still used a GPS there were routes I would drive
frequently that I couldn't drive without the GPS.

But what I really meant by the comment is despite living 30 years in the same
city I barely know where anything is. Especially in comparison to everyone
else I know they can all describe where things are via nearby business, other
landmarks and adjacent suburbs and I am lost at to which part of the city the
first suburb they mentioned is even in. I also have very little mental models
of how one suburb connects to another. It's like each suburb lives in it's own
isolate container and when I imagine it all I see in my mind is the main
commercial area of that suburb.

One of these days I'm thinking of just using Anki to memorize my entire city
and be done with it.

~~~
frosted-flakes
I always use a GPS, but I rarely set a route on it. I have a Garmin unit
mounted to my windshield that automatically comes on with the ignition[1], and
it acts as an omnipresent 3D map. This actually _aids_ my understanding of a
city, because now I know the name of every cross street[2], can recognise
roads by their shape, and can see where I've been before[3].

I prefer a standalone Garmin unit over Google Maps because it's automatically
present, it's actually readable, I can control the zoom level at will, and it
doesn't use data / I don't have to keep offline maps up-to-date.

[1] I added a switched 12V outlet so I could get this behaviour. Many new cars
are like this by default, but not mine.

[2] My GPS shows the next street as "Pine St ahead" in place of the next turn
when a route is not set. Actually super handy. Also, all roads on the map have
large, clear labels, so I can also see parallel roads, etc., unlike Google
Maps.

[3] My GPS paints a blue trail behind me on the map, so once I've driven
through an area, I can just glance at the paint line to orient myself.

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bdcravens
I grew up poor, and we had no vehicle, ever. We did a lot of walking. From age
10 or so, I was quite the explorer (didn't have great supervision, but I also
grew up in a smallish city of around 30k, not a large city). I certainly am
not the world's best navigator, but I feel like I can drop down in the middle
of any city and get around pretty well.

~~~
mamcx
I say that I never know where I'm but always reach my destination*.

Is weird.

P.D: And almost 90% of time I ask (because i feel lost) "where is X i looking
for" and is around the block or even closer...

------
WalterBright
When I use a navigator, I can't find my way back. If I look up the route
beforehand and look at a map, I can.

When I first moved to Seattle, on weekends I would sometimes just aimlessly
drive down various roads. I wound up building a mental map of the city that
has served me well ever since.

~~~
tasuki
> When I first moved to Seattle, on weekends I would sometimes just aimlessly
> drive down various roads.

This is so American. I don't know anyone in Europe who would aimlessly drive
around. If you have to drive, you drive from A to B and that's it.

I can understand aimlessly _walking_ around or cycling. Walking or cycling,
you perceive the smells and the sounds of the city, you can feel the wind, the
sun, the rain. You can talk to people on the streets or just observe them. In
other words, you're part of the world. _Driving_ , you're locked inside of
your comfort box, perfectly isolated from the world around you.

~~~
WalterBright
In both Berlin and London, I discovered that exploring the city using the
subway builds a mental map of the city that is grossly distorted. First off,
the subway map of the city is distorted, secondly, you get a very messed up
sense of distance when you're rushing through a tunnel.

When I'd walk instead from stop to stop, I was quite surprised at the
distorted version in my mind. It was a black field with a circle of
illumination around each stop, with no real connection between them. It took
walking to fill that in.

I'd walk for miles and miles in London and Berlin, which was quite pleasant
but I got rather sore legs from it :-)

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Ididntdothis
That’s how I feel if you use GPS navigation a lot. When I moved to LA I used
my cell phone a lot to get to places but after a while I realized that I
didn’t really know where things are. Now I am making a point to use the phone
as little as possible and I feel I have a much better idea where things are.

------
richardw
Adults too. As a young adult I was amazed at my friend's ability to know where
we were in the city. When I started driving I learned fast.

It's similar to learning something by either being told or by coming to the
conclusion yourself. The latter feels much more solid.

------
sdan
This is true to an extent. But at the same time the argument is kind of
flawed: can kids safely walk around their neighborhoods nowadays?

At least where I lived, the city was nice but there were too many cars and it
was unusual to see anyone walking... nevertheless kids walking.

~~~
tristor
Not sure where you are in the world, but in most of the developed world things
have never been safer. So, the answer to your questions is a resounding "yes".
Yes, it's safe for kids to walk around their neighborhoods these days.

~~~
sdan
I live in Cupertino, near Apple HQ. Obviously you _can_ walk around but I
rarely see anyone do... and I generally have never seen kids unattended around
here (living here for 17 years).

~~~
saagarjha
The west side of the city is a lot quieter, and it's not uncommon to see
people out and about here. The entrance to the Hammond-Snyder Loop trail isn't
the most discoverable from where I live, but it's just a couple blocks away
and I see people on the train tracks near it occasionally.

~~~
sdan
In either case, have you ever seen a kid running around?

I mean obviously I know from experience and being a kid at one point that
apartment complexes are overly infested with kids running around, but pretty
sure given the year and parenting, most if not all kids under the age of 15
don't freely walk in the streets.

~~~
saagarjha
Yes, quite frequently. I live in a townhome complex though, so it's not like
these kids are playing street hockey directly on Stevens Creek.

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art4ur
This is one of those things that I just thought was common knowledge. I forced
my nieces and nephews to get familiar with the local bus routes before they
we're old enough to drive. Having to plan a trip and look at a map do wonders.

------
maxaf
I grew up in Moscow, and my family used a private car to get around the city.
I always knew where I was, because I figured one day my turn would come to
navigate the roads on my own.

I’m raising my daughter in Manhattan, the least car-friendly place in the US.
Until we ditched transit and began driving everywhere, she had no idea where
we were or in which direction we were heading. Nowadays she makes suggestions
from the back seat regarding which road is best and which stops we must make
on the way.

That, my friends, is anecdata; but so is every citylab article. The world
can’t be described by a naive generalization that, ironically, even a child
can see through.

~~~
uiri
I grew up in Toronto and relied primarily on public transit growing up. As a
kid, I would have a good mental model of the area around a subway station but
as soon as we went underground it was like a wormhole to another part of the
city. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I had a good model of how the
areas around the different subway stations connected with each other.

Did you rely primarily on the subway system before you ditched transit?

~~~
maxaf
My daughter was mainly a bus rider, as the places she usually goes aren’t
served by the subway. I used to ride the subway to work, but I haven’t in
years since I’ve turned to working from home.

My theory is that traveling in a vehicle that is “on rails” (train or tram or
bus - they’re all alike in that their routes are predetermined) removes every
bit of agency from the passenger, and leaves them completely disconnected from
details of the route. Passengers engage in conversation or bring entertainment
with them that further weakens the spatial link.

Those traveling in private cars have at least some opportunity left to
influence their trajectory or destination. “Perhaps you should make a right
turn here” or “let’s stop for ice cream at that place we like” are both things
that get said along the way. There’s also the constant stream of teachable
moments supplied by other drivers in the form of poor vehicle control.

------
QuantumGood
I didn't know the months of the year in perfect order by the time I was a
teenager. I had most of them right, though. When my mother found out I spent a
few minutes on the ones I wasn't clear on, reviewed them once or twice and
never forgot.

There is nothing that everyone automatically focuses on and remembers when
focus and memory are not required.

~~~
happytoexplain
I'm in my 30s and I still often have to start from January if I want to know
which month comes _before_ a given month. Same with letters of the alphabet.

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toastal
I bet we could help people regain some of this ability via video games. A lot
of time people are fast traveling or following from point A to B on a minimap
without needs to understand how landmarks and directions relate to your
position. Anecdotally, I've found people like myself who prefer GPS when
traveling to always keep the map pointed north have a better understanding of
how and where to get from place to place because landmarks are also tied to a
sense of cardinal direction. Many games offer this as an option as well.
Despite growing up in a 900-person town, memorizing the Los Santos and San
Fiero in GTA: San Andreas made city navigation later in life something I had
already trained my brain on.

~~~
cam_l
>people like myself who prefer GPS when traveling to always keep the map
pointed north

Argh, google maps appears to have pushed an update which seems to remove the
ability to use directions in this mode. The driving mode to me is absolutely
useless as it only shows me which direction i am heading, not where i am going
or how i will get there.

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musicale
"Windshield perspective" is telling. Even with a windshield, it's a lot easier
to see where you're going if you are adult-height and sit in the front seat.

Moreover, drives can be extremely boring: getting stuck behind large vehicles
that obscure any view, sitting through traffic jams and delays, waiting at
stop lights, etc.. It's not surprising that passengers may not pay much
attention to them.

And it's not just being driven - the heavy traffic seemed to degrade the
neighborhood in predictable ways.

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KozmoNau7
Before I moved to the capital, we visited a couple of times on vacation. We
drove everywhere, so while I knew most of the major attractions, I didn't know
where they were in relation to each other.

Later, when I moved here, I took the bus and train everywhere, so I knew the
rail network and various places in relation to train stations, but not the
actual physical layout of the city.

It was only when I got a car and later started biking instead, that it all
fell into place for me. It wasn't that I felt lost before, but my navigation
was based primarily on train stations and rail lines.

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thrower123
I always had to hold the Delorme Gazeteer or later, run the Garmin, when we
went on road trips, from the time I was seven or eight years old. I suspect
that early exposure to maps like that is the reason I have to have GPS
navigation systems stay north-oriented, rather than rotating with the
vehicle's heading.

This was before in-car entertainment systems also, I suppose, so there wasn't
much to do other than look out the window, so you'd pick up a lot of the
landscape and landmarks as well.

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clircle
I grew up in a small (30k pop) city in "rural" Missouri and had no idea when I
was going when my parents drove me around as a kid. I got older and started
slinging pizzas and learned every nook and cranny in the whole town. This was
before google maps took over. It's cool to learn every which way to get around
a small town, but probably not that important in the grand scheme. I'm happy
to offload this computation to my smart phone these days.

~~~
kylek
This comment reminded me about "The Knowledge" [0] that London cab drivers
must have before they're able to be a cab driver.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom#The_Knowledge)

~~~
pryffwyd
34 months to pass, jesus. No wonder ridesharing is eating taxis' lunch.

------
stevesearer
I like to joke that Google Maps/Waze purposely route you different ways to the
same places to make you helpless and in need of GPS so you will keep using
them.

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jvagner
My girlfriend moved towns to move in with me. We both work from home,
together... and I usually drive (newer, bigger car).

She doesn’t really know how our town is laid out. We joke about it but know
why that’s the case. We’ve just moved. I think she’ll have more solo transit
time here.

My son will have to fly back and forth a bit. He doesn’t want a car, so I
suspect he’ll know airports and trains better than he’ll know the roads.

~~~
orev
I do the same. Move around every few years and work from home. I could not
survive without Google maps. Takes me years to learn a new area.

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allcentury
In my neighborhood, on a dead end street we would make cars wait while a
hockey play was in flight. One more second please Mrs. Stevenson!

That same street is a ghost town not really because of cars but two things. 1.
Empty nesters didn't move out and 2. The kids that are there would rather be
in front of a screen then wonder outside.

If you saw a kid outside you would jump out the door and play. That doesn't
happen like it use to.

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flywithdolp
I traveled with my best friend few years ago in South America

I was usually on the navigation and guiding us from place to place

When we went out for drinks at night he never knew the way back, or even which
area we are

I beleive that because in his mind, I'm the one who need to guide us, his
brain didn't focus on remembering places and elements on the way that can give
him a clue about the way back

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mjevans
I must be the exception to this rule. As a kid I always preferred 'shotgun'
and/or the window seat so I could look out and see where I was going. I think
I must have been paranoid to always know the safe route back to 'base'
(school, home, etc).

This also applied to when my parents took me to things like swimming lessons
(in a suburb over).

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dbtqgoat
It’s a fair point, I was felt like I was being teleported around as a kid. It
wasn’t until I was driving myself until I started to realize how the different
places of my childhood were connected in relation to each other. I would be
driving down a street and go “oh, that’s where the Spring Training stadium is”

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cptskippy
I don't believe this, I think some people are imbued with a sense of direction
and others aren't. Some are only capable of following turn by turn
instructions, they don't comprehend where they are in relation to anything.

My two older kids have the worst sense of direction I've ever encountered but
my 3 year old has built in GPS. We were all in the car going somewhere one day
and sitting at an intersection my 3 year old says "the Indian restaurant is
over there" and points in the direction of a restaurant we frequent that was
about 1/2 mile away. The 14 year old looks at me confused and I nodded "yes".

I work in a building that's rotationally symmetrical and the only indications
of orientation are the carpet colors for the 4 quadrants. I'm consistently
amazed at how many people will get off an elevator and have no idea which
direction to go. I've tried given cardinal directions to no avail, some people
are just oblivious to their surroundings.

~~~
briandear
Cardinal directions inside of a building are mostly worthless.

~~~
mkl
I disagree completely. If I know which way I'm facing relative to the world
outside, I know which direction everything is.

