[msb-alumni] Are we losing our sense of direction by using GPS
- From: Steve <pipeguy920@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: <msb-alumni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2018 16:36:45 -0500
BlankI know I am, there are times I travel now and think back on "how did I
find
this place, or walk six or seven miles before" without knowing what street I
was
crossing, etc.
Steve
Are we losing our sense of direction by using GPS? . Jennifer M. Bernstein.
Many of us have had the experience of arriving in an unfamiliar city and
needing
to get to a specific destination -- whether it's checking in at a hotel,
meeting
a friend at a local brewery or navigating to a meeting on time. With a
few clicks of the smartphone, the destination is entered into a navigational
app, with customized route preferences to avoid traffic, tolls and, in cities
such as San Francisco, even inclines.
Anxiety abated, one drives to one's destination via voice prompts and the
occasional illicit glance at the constantly
updating map.
But, after having arrived safely, there is the vague awareness that we don't
know how we got there. We cannot remember the landmarks along the way and,
without our handheld device, certainly couldn't get back to our origin point.
So are the navigational capacities of our smartphones making us worse
navigators? Research points to yes. But, given the ubiquity of these devices,
as
well as their ability to enable particular groups, perhaps we
should learn to embrace them as a technological prosthetic.
Worse at finding our way
All cultures practice wayfinding - sensing one's environment for barriers to
travel, then navigating spatially to a remote destination. Geographers (like
myself), psychologists, anthropologists and neurologists all have studied how
individuals navigate from point A to point B.
In a landmark 1975 paper, psychologists Alexander Siegel and Sheldon White
argued that people navigate
via their knowledge of landmarks against a larger landscape. New navigational
routes are discovered via the linking of familiar landmarks with new ones.
For example, Inuit people, faced with snowy, topographically uniform
landscapes,
are attentive to subtle cues such as snowdrift shape and wind direction. Until
the advent of GPS devices, those cultures had no cultural conception of the
idea
of being lost.
Research has established that mobile navigational devices, such as the GPS
embedded in one's smartphone, make us less proficient wayfinders. Mobile
interfaces leave users less spatially oriented than either physical movement or
static maps. Handheld navigational devices have been linked to lower spatial
cognition, poorer wayfinding skills and reduced environmental awareness.
People are less likely to remember a route when they use guided navigation.
Without their device, regular GPS users take longer to negotiate a route,
travel
more slowly and make larger navigational errors.
While physical navigation and static maps require engagement with the physical
environment, guided navigation enables disengagement.
Expanding the view
But that doesn't mean mobile navigation is all bad. A blanket demonization of
these devices may be a form of "ethnonostalgia," where we find ourselves
sentimental for an imagined simpler place and time.
Technological advances, historically, have liberated humans from toil and
suffering. Further, many of our experiences are mediated through technology.
Drivers use cars, hunters use guns, and many of us are constantly on our
smartphones.
In short, as sociologist Claudio Aporta and ecologist Eric Higgs put it,
"Technology has become the setting in
which much of our daily lives take place.
In his seminal 1997 article, geographer Robert Downs argues that spatial
technologies need not replace geographic
thinking, but rather serve as a prosthesis, supplementing our spatial
awareness.
The increased access to information gives people a new way to quickly and
easily
explore new landscapes -- which can then lead to physical exploration of such
landscapes (many of my fellow map nerds do this all the time). We can then
focus
less on the rote memorization of place names in favor of a deeper understanding
of the topography.
While research shows that use of handheld navigational devices can lead to
lower
spatial knowledge, that may not necessarily be the device's fault. Those most
likely to use guided route navigation tend to be the least confident in their
own navigational capabilities; further use of navigational devices leads to a
negative feedback cycle, where people
become more reliant on their devices and less spatially aware.
For some groups, these devices are enabling. Handheld navigational devices can
now enable
independent wayfinding by those who are sight-impaired. While not without their
drawbacks, handheld navigation can empower those with spatial orientation
challenges, be they real or imagined.
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