
Have we become too reliant on GPS? - mathattack
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/10/11379698/gps-navigation-brain-problems
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aylons
This article conflates digital map and GPS shamelessly, making the argument
very confusing.

First, even if I rely on GPS for turn by turn navigation, I still use the map
to see the route and specially to locate myself when in a new area. Sometimes
I look for a place to eat nearby and them I make the route just by looking at
the map: walking is often a matter of choosing nicer streets, which the Google
Maps route does not do well.

On the other hand, driving around always make me distant from the place I'm
at. With or without turn by turn navigation. Without it, I just look at the
map and make a route beforehand, never seeing anything around me in between -
too worried on navigating for that,even if I am not the driver.

People traveling long distances by error was not unheard of before GPS. It was
just less of a news item. Quite on the contrary, I bet they are less frequent
today.

Also, a good share of the population always had problems reading maps. I guess
they are the ones that depend the most on GPS.

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

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mikeash
Are we too reliant on GPS? I don't think so. There's Galileo and GLONASS,
after all. Your smartphone probably already supports GLONASS, and I imagine
we'll see widespread Galileo support once the constellation is more complete.

Are we too reliant on turn by turn directions? Maybe. On the other hand,
stupid failures like the ones mentioned in the article are pretty rare. That's
pretty much by definition, otherwise they wouldn't have made the news in the
first place.

Are we losing navigational skills? Maybe. But what the article discusses isn't
a lack of navigational skills, it's a simple unwillingness to use them. I'm
sure that Syrian truck driver didn't go off course because lacked the skills
to find out where Gibraltar is, he merely neglected to even make the attempt.
It's a failure of planning, not a failure of skills. If someone leaves their
house unlocked because they didn't double-check that it was locked when they
departed, we don't call that a loss of door-locking skills, we just call it a
failure to pay attention.

Finally, the article tries to shoehorn in a mention of self-driving cars, I
guess because it's the cool thing at the moment. "It's not okay for a
driverless car to get bewildered for a bit because it's in a city center."
Well sure it is! People do that all the time! It's not like a self-driving car
needs GPS in order to avoid crashing.

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sharkweek
One of my best friends is a firefighter, about 30 years old, but started a few
years ago in his mid-20s.

During his training, the captain would take him out on training rides and
absolutely berate his lack of knowledge of local streets of both the city in
which they worked and in the other local cities that they were most commonly
called to. This went on for months at a time until he could recite entire city
maps nearly by heart.

He complained a lot at first about why they didn't predominantly use GPS,
thinking "get with the times, folks" but in his blossoming career, he says
it's pretty nice taking the rig out and just, with second nature, knowing
where to go. This also comforts me as a citizen of the city, knowing they
don't rely on a technology that could fail in critical moments to get to where
they need to serve.

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ajford
So I recently encountered this. I used to think I was ok at navigating, but
whenever I got into an unfamiliar area, I had a hard time navigating using
maps and street signs.

But I have lived in Puerto Rico for 2.5 years now. Cell coverage and speed is
very hit or miss, and the mountains and valleys make GPS and connected maps
very unreliable. After 2 years here, I went from getting lost or turned around
frequently to being able to navigate most of the island without my phone. And
I feel like my sense of direction has improved significantly.

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pimlottc
The truth is that navigation apps are not really designed to give you a larger
sense of your route but rather just what you need to do to get to the next
turn. Partially this is due to the relatively small size of smartphone screens
but it is often actually actively difficult to zoom out or scroll ahead while
in navigation mode. It's so focused on the details that you miss the big
picture.

What if you made a different kind of navigation app, one that was designed to
help you learn the streets as your travel? It could teach your about the main
freeways and arterial roads. It could monitor your driving and give you points
when you successfully reach your destination without turn-by-turn "hints"
(though it would be ready to help you out if you got too off-course).

Granted, I'm not sure how big a market there would be for kind of app, but I'd
love to try it. I think it'd be an interested experiment at the very least.

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

~~~
mikestew
_Electronics fail, my map and compass have never failed me._

Fail? Shit, for hiking scenarios they just plain don't work half the time due
to terrain and tree cover. Dedicated GPS units seem to have improved a lot,
but there's no way I'd rely on a phone for guidance. I, too, grew up on
compass and topo map. My primary "good way to get lost" activity is trail
running, and I always carry a paper map. It might just be the trail map from
the trailhead, but at least it's _something_ that doesn't rely on batteries or
an outside entity keeping their systems up.

So, yeah, perhaps "we" are too reliant if it has people wandering off into the
woods with nothing but a cell phone. OTOH, those same folks probably would
just wandered off with nothing but a hardy "I have a good sense of direction"
if they didn't have a GPS.

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Benjammer
This seems like a non-issue, or at least not a new issue. People can be bad at
reading paper maps, bad at reading star charts, bad at using a sextant,
mistake another star for the north star, etc...

Also, GPS, digital maps, route optimization, and turn-by-turn navigation are
all separate things that this article kind of muddles together into the same
"issue".

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

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

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

