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How Does GPS Change Us?
ATKeiper writes "People have talked for a while about the effects of GPS on our driving ability and our sense of direction; one researcher at McGill has even been developing an exercise regimen to compensate for our supposedly atrophying navigational ability. But is GPS reshaping our lives in a more fundamental sense? The author of this new essay draws on science, sociology, and literature to argue that GPS is transforming how we think about travel and exploration. How can we discover 'the new' in an age when everything around us is mapped?" My own experience is that GPS has made me much more aware of location, by showing me the bird's-eye view, and letting me instantly compare alternate routes.
thing around us is mapped?"
How is this a GPS problem? Maps existed before GPS...
Also, isn't it like asking "How can I discover new restaurants (or products) when everything is already reviewed?"
If you want to pioneer, go to the bottom of the ocean or into space. You know, the edges of human knowledge. Don't stay safely within the confines of society and then complain that your "exploration" is already known.
at least to me.
I've broadened by navigational horizons. First, by turning on "Avoid Highways," which exposes you to side roads. Secondly, I've found that GPS can show you shorter routes you might never have found/taken because you chose the simple/easy route.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
1) Smart people who know how to take GPS information and couple it with some commonsense / a genuine interest in being a little self sufficient and a little clever about navigation.
2) People who don't care to know any better, and will simply treat them as a tool that prevents them from having to think. These are the kinds of people who will follow their GPS into a river / off a cliff / the wrong way on a one way street / etc.
When navigating in a foreign country or in a city i'm utterly unfamiliar with, the GPS is golden. But having only had a personal one for the last few months i'm working hard not to let it dilute my head-for-direction, by continuing to look at flat maps, find points of reference, and continue to let the 'relationships' between geographic locations build in my conciousness, particularly in my home city.
I've also found that GPS's don't always make smart navigation decisions; for example I don't believe that adding an additional 40% in distance for a theoretical 10% saving in time is actually smart driving, esp when that time saving is based on projected speed limits and doesn't deal to traffic, traffic lights, road works...
-.-. --.-
At least a few people every year die because they go out into the boonies with a GPS and no map. The GPS puts them on some kind of goat trail, they get stuck, and then found a month later, dead.
To the contrary, GPS and live maps are an amazing tool for discovery. Not only can you see potentially interesting things around you, but you feel more at ease going to see them because you know it's easy enough to find your way back to the main path...
That said, I wish makers of navigation software would make it easier to define many possible side paths you were interested in ahead of time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Well I don't usually use GPS much when I'm on holiday, or when I'm in my home country, since I know most of it pretty well after 30 years. But for me the biggest benefit of ubiquitous GPS (first on separate GPS devices, then on phones) is on BUSINESS trips.
The boss sends you to some random city/country you've never been to before. You land there at 8pm and the taxi takes you to a hotel somewhere. You have a meeting first thing tomorrow morning - how far away is the place you're going? Walking distance or will I need to get a taxi? Is there a train line near the hotel?
I'm feeling a bit hungry, I wonder if there's a convenience store nearby where I can buy a snack. It's 11pm, most things are shut and I'm in a strange city. I could wander around aimlessly until I find something or I could type in "7/11" or whatever on my phone and see all the nearby locations on the map in relation to me.
Even more importantly: argh - I'm out of cash, and this stupid shop doesn't accept card payments under . Where's the nearest ATM in this bloody city? Previously, a pain in the ass. Now, no problem at all.
Basically having GPS in my pocket at all times has made my business trips far less stressful!
Often I found myself driving around a village or town lost, unable to find the side street I was looking for only to find it on the way back out of town realizing it was on a wall or house that was only viewable from the street going in one direction.
GPS elimintated alot of that nonsense.
There still are places, believe it or not, in the world where humans have never (or very rarely) trodden. Even in those places where humans have trodden, there are many that are poorly documented, explored, or studied. I don't think that GPS changes us very much at all. The majority of people still stay at home or close to areas that they know. There are people who rely on GPS to tell them where to go, and what streets to follow. Then there are other people, probably a minority, who go where they need to go to find out something interesting, or research something where there probably aren't any streets; in those cases GPS coordinates are merely extra metadata. I, personally, don't care about the people in cities who need a GPS to find a post office or whatever. For those people doing real work, a GPS is merely a more accurate and modern system of identifying (and recording) coordinates of interesting things.
Doing a bit of rogaining was he best thing I ever did to improve my ability to navigate.
So how does growing hair help? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogain :}}
It keeps the head warmer and working at optimum temperature, obviously.
I used to have to ask someone where the nearest this or that could be found. I used to have to ask how to get from A to B. Local landmarks used to be paramount in navigation and route finding. Now we can haplessly ignore the locals and find our own way straight to the restaurant we chose based on Yelp reviews. Word of mouth is not very useful anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. What I'm getting at, is that smaller cities/towns lose control of their identity. It's the internet that decides which restaurants and hotels are the best, and how to get around town. I'm not trying to commend on whether or not this is better or worse, but it's hard to find one piece of technology which has contributed so much to this trend.
GPS has removed the need to "memorize" local street patterns or common routes. Why bother to remember how to get to your favorite vacation spot when GPS will "always" be there to guide you? (Again, this is stripping local landmarks of their significance)
In another sense, GPS (GNSS for those of you modern enough to embrace foreign constellations) has really complicated the idea of "location." The instability of consumer-grade GPSr observations and the steep price curve for more accurate instruments has created a rather cluttered mess. Everyone seems to think that their coordinates are better than the other guy. I'm in the land surveying/geomatics field, and even at that level GPS is rarely brought up in legal disputes because it's just not an acceptable replacement for good old fashioned direct measurements (or acceptable substitutions, like EDMs).
In my opinion, GPS/GNSS has not solved *any* issues in the civilian world. It has (over)simplified and depersonalized navigation (non GNSS alternatives exist and have worked wonderfully for centuries), created clutter and confusion, and in conjunction with the internet helped to strip local societies of their identity.
A few points:
Q. How do we discover the 'new'?
A: We are more likely to discover the new BECAUSE of GPS. Without GPS you are much more likely to stick with major routes to your destination. With our (perhaps over-) confidence in the guidance of GPS, we are more prone to take out of the way routes as suggested by the GPS. This is how we can discover the 'new'. Additionally with confidence in GPS, I know that I am a lot more willing to try to even go to new places that I haven't been before. I can tell you from personal experience that just going with printed Mapquest directions and a map or two does not lead to marital bliss and made me not want to go to new places nearly as much. It's far better going to new places now that we have GPS.
Q. Is it damaging our navigational ability?
A: Does the use of a compass also damage our navigational ability? You could argue that the GPS in fact can help our navigational ability by showing us how distorted our own viewpoint can be. You find the same thing though with a compass.
Q. Is it changing how we think about travel and explorations?
They point to the need for more multi-tasking skills, etc. This may be a change for Baby Boomers, but I would argue that it's actually moving navigation into sync for the younger generation. We are used to multi-tasking. Additionally, when I first got a GPS, it felt EXTREMELY comfortable. Suspiciously so. Then I realized that it was a real-life mini-map! I was tremendously used to navigating in less familiar (albeit virtual) environs with the help of a minimap, while keeping most of my attention on the new environs, after all, if I didn't pay attention to where I was going in the world before, I could run into some nasty dragon, etc. The younger generation is already thinking about travel and exploration in the way that GPS pushes us, due to video games.
From the summary:
My own experience is that GPS has made me much more aware of location, by showing me the bird's-eye view, and letting me instantly compare alternate routes.
You apparently don't know what GPS actually is, because GPS has nothing to do with bird-eye views nor comparing alternate routes. All GPS does is tell you the time and where on the planet you are.
Routing and mapping are not exclusive to GPS.
I use GPS quite heavily, but most of my usage is moving map apps, which do not try to route for me. They show me a map, where I am, and where I am headed, Its upto me to chose the route and explore.
Now maybe 5 years ago, when I did not have any GPS, I would have never dared to explore a 200km long salt flat.
But today, I can leave the main road, drive in the flat laying down my GPS track. If I am unable to find an exit point, all I do is retrace my track.
I has also helped me explore some high altitude himalayan deserts. No roads are marked, just a black space showing me my "track". By looking at the compass, and having a town on the other end as my "destination" I can plan my route by hit and trial.
For example, I recently went to a lake system called Kyun Tso in the himalayas.
As I left the last village, the track bifurcated into multiples. I took the vehicle up the wrong track and ended up on a 4700m high flat plain.
But no panic, we took some pics, admired the view, and then followed our track back to the fork, and then took the other one.
So we could actually "explore" without fear of getting lose 5000m above sea level.
Considering, some locals do this once a week or even less, if you get lost up there, help can be days away.
But GPS allows you the freedom to be an explorer.
I quickly have mapped all that on openstreetmap, and future offroaders can follow my tracks easily.
Then there is the dark side.
When I am in US, I am tempted to let the navigation app to do my routing, and often I end up on roads I do not want to be on. For example, a freeway 20kms long can be cut short by a 5km path within the town, the app chooses that, and I end up spending 1 hour in traffic jams.
So yes, its good, and bad.
Last but not the least, there was a story some time back "Death by GPS".
This is what you get for blindly trusting your navigation app.
So best way is to use your GPS as an informer, or a walking stick, not as your crutch.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Thanks to GPS, I truly don't need to ask directions...
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
We must GPS space!
If only we had satellites there, then we might be able to triangulate just like on earth!
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I spent about 15 years in the boy-scout movement, and I learned pretty well how to walk in the world using maps, compass, sun and stars for finding my way to home. Furthermore, it is about 35 years I practice mountain hiking and climbing, often alone, and never got into troubles when I had to find my path. This experience has been fruitful also when it comes to driving: it is quite surprising how easy it is to find your road, when you have the ability to think in terms of cardinal points, notable references and you have in your mind a rough image of the territory you are crossing. So I never use a GPS in my daily activities, but I rescued twice people in the mountains who were into deep troubles, because they had neither map nor compass, but only a GPS with all the waypoints loaded in the memory, and a empty battery.
However I do have a small GPS tracker, and I use it when I go around in the woods picking up mushrooms and truffles: if you combine your findings with coordinates using geostatistics you get very interesting maps. And no, I am not going to publish them on the web!
On the surface of the Earth, there is no "discovery" if you are talking about finding new lands or something. The whole surface is mapped, with quite a bit of precision. It is all known. The age of discovery, in that sense of the word, is dead.
Now of course if you want a thrill of personal discovery, you still have that option. You can go exploring any area you like and not use a map, GPS, etc. You can personally enjoy finding out things for yourself, without having looked it up first. You just know that it has in fact been mapped by humans.
All GPS does is let us know where we are much better than ever before. It is an easy to use tool that makes precise geolocation a reality everywhere except maybe densely forested areas or underground.
Some hikers keep the GPS in their backpack as a backup, look at the tracks and paths on a map, and as the parent poster says look at the contours and lie of the land. They will probably look at the map once or twice per mile in open country. If they intended to walk along the top edge of a wood, but find they reach it at a path entering the middle, a quick check of the map and on they go - they can join their original track at the other side. Often their GPS will show coordinates only, and will be used in an emergency referencing against a paper map.
Other hikers have a GPS with a detailed walking map added. They will look at this every few hunderd yards. You will sometimes see them backtrack 20 yards after a fork in a path and take the other one, rather than angling across country to join it. If they expected to walk along the top edge of a wood and reach it at a path entering the middle they would probably bactrack or find a marked path round the edge. Entering woods can bring you into dangerous territory where you lose the signal. If their GPS failed or ran out of charge they would probably be on their mobile calling rescue services. If they didn't get a signal they would not want to head for higher land if it meant leaving the track.
To me the second type doesn't sound fun and is a liability to themselves and the rescue services.
Was navigating a car from the backseat, back from a night out. It's a town I don't live in and we often use a 'Navi' (german layman term equivalent of 'GPS' in the U.S.). However, the Navi was packed away, since I knew the way from the venue to where we were going. But I was chatting with the lady next to me and we missed a turn. It's been ages since, but I instantly went into 'landmark, neighbourhood and general direction' mode and we got to the destiny with barely any delay. And that was across a river, with another river nearby and on the other side of town.
I'd say navigating without artificial assistance is a skill like bicycle riding. Once learned you won't forget it. It's a also a lot about taking calculated risks. And I do remember turning pages in huge road atlases, cursing every time about how tedious the task of connecting one double-page to an adjacent is, and thinking up better methods. Alas, back then we did know the concepts, didn't we? But the technology just wasn't there or cheap enough. I figure you could build a decent Navi on my DOS Pocket PC from the early 90ies - only they weren't widespread enough for it to be feasable. Mercedes Benz had only started working on digital roadmaps, smaller flywheel compases and stuff a few years earlyer.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca