I have noticed that younger uber drivers trust their apps even to do incredibly stupid things like: make a massive loop over a bridge to turn around and go back to where they came when they were already parked on a two-way street with no traffic in front of my apartment building. Older people will actually listen to me when I tell them they should ignore the app. Younger people get upset at the very suggestion, like not following the app is dangerous or against the law or something.
I think the apps don't help themselves; if it said something along the lines of "You need to turn around - you can do so safely by <making a massive loop over a bridge>" this would inform people of the need to turn around and tell them how to do so in the event that they cannot do so safely simply by throwing a handbrake turn at speed this very second.
As it is, they sometimes even obscure the fact that they're guiding the user to turn around. I've definitely found myself guided to turn around via an awkward route in the past and found myself surprised when I realised that's what the game was.
Part of it is that pax telling drivers to ignore the app can be a scam. They tell the driver to take a "better way", which turns out to be a worse way, and then they complain to Uber and ask to get a refund. So a lot of drivers prefer to simply listen to the app even when suboptimal as that way only the app can be blamed.
Because MOST people that have suggestions that are different from the app DON'T know what they're talking about, or are ignorant to real-time conditions like traffic and accidents that the app would take into account.
Obviously in your example it should be trivial to just do what you said, but ignoring the human and following the app is a safe rule of thumb 99% of the time, and not increase one's cognitive decision load.
Also a u-turn in a two-way street is always safe, until the one time it isn't, and you get a ticket from a cop you don't notice somewhere on the horizon (happened to me once)
I can't edit my comment anymore, but I'd like to point out that I'm not commenting on what people's behavior should be, but that there's a generational difference between people who always trust the app and do what it says versus people who are willing to consider the actual conditions. People over 40 don't treat directions the same anymore. Maybe they're wrong to question the app. That wasn't really the point. The point was, like the OP article, that "the app" has changed our relationship to spatial orientation and navigation.
I enjoy setting the GPS navigation destination to somewhere in the opposite direction of where I am actually driving, and stubbornly disobeying it while listening to its growing frustration as it relentlessly tries to desperately negotiate with me to stop driving in the wrong direction and turn around.
I think it builds character, stamina, self determination, and will power, and it's healthy to practice resisting the subservient temptation of mindlessly obeying commands from computers and robots.
