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.

Comments

"How can we discover 'the new' in an age when

[rolfwind]

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.

Obvious...

[msauve]

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.

Re:Obvious...

[bgat]

If we could get past the obvious privacy implications, seems like Google Maps et. al could incorporate the route you ACTUALLY took into future requests for similar routes. It always irritates me when I get an obviously sub-optimal route from Google Maps, but it's never clear to me how to actually fix the problem. If Google took feedback from where I actually drove instead, over time the problem might fix itself.

Re:Obvious...

[icebike]

Avoiding highways and using side roads raises the ire of the locals. Now, instead of sitting in a traffic jam, we can (without fear of getting lost) cut through the adjacent neighborhoods.

Not necessarily.

When people planned trips with gas station maps they never left the freeway. Biggest risk they would take is a US Route.
When the freeway bypassed small towns those towns died.

Now with Nav units, and Google maps people will actually choose (horrors) State Highways (yup) when traveling. Recently we were delighted to find some great little towns with nice shops along our route when we deliberately set the the GPS to take us off the freeway via US routes and State routes. The distance was shorter, the view better, and the total time ended up about the same, because there is so little traffic and fewer traffic cops.

Folks in the restaurant in this one out of the way little berg in eastern Oregon said they saw a lot of people who found the place via Google maps or their GPS, and business had actually picked up since Street View car mapped the entire route. They were glad to have the business as was the local hotel.

When see the type of highway you will be driving on the back routes are far more fun, and the GPS makes sure you don't end up sleeping in the car.

GPS creates two extremes.

[BlakJak-ZL1VMF]

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...

Re:GPS creates two extremes.

[plover]

It's certainly not black and white as you make it out to be. If I want to learn a particular area, I learn it, and the GPS becomes a learning aid. If I'm somewhere on business and just want to function in the region without worrying about where everything is, I'll often let the GPS do all the navigation. I'm not a retard, and don't take illegal exits or carpool lanes just because the stupid box thinks it'll get me there; I just don't need to learn the city. I'm not there to memorize their quirky stripes of concrete, I'm there to meet people and take care of business.

I've also found there's a wide variety in the quality of the various mapping tools. Some nav units are pretty good (Garmin), some are pretty bad (Sync), but none of the self-contained boxes I've used are as good as Google Maps at finding optimized routes. And none of the nav units is worth crap as far as parsing addresses. Having to type the number independently from the street is awkward. Having to pick a particular stretch of road based on street number (Sync) is a maddening exercise. Google just figures out how to parse whatever I throw at it, and it does a great job of it.

Business trips

[Cimexus]

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!

Re:GPS kills

[plover]

One of my favorite scenes from the movie "Rat Race" was when Whoopi Goldberg followed Kathy Bates' instructions to the freeway without buying a squirrel from her. As they're plunging down the embankment to land in the pile of wrecked cars, they pass a series of hand-lettered signs:

You
Should
Have
Bought
A
Squirrel

GPS Doesn't Solve Any Problems

[rocketPack]

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.

No kidding

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

Re:GPS kills

[Hognoxious]

The GPS puts them on some kind of goat trail, they get stuck, and then found a month later, dead.

Well, yes. I just went through this a couple of weeks ago on a hiking trip.

I must say, you're looking rather well, all considered.