I used to have an amazing sense of direction, could read a map, and wouldn’t even need it half the time. Going out of state for a concert? Pssh, we’ll just wing it. Always got where I was going.
Ever since I got my first smartphone with GPS, I feel like I need it just to cross the street.
Driving somewhere with GPS definitely seems to engage the brain in a different way than driving there without GPS. If I’m driving somewhere once and don’t expect to drive there again, I’ll use GPS every time, but if I’m driving to a familiar area or trying make an area more familiar, I’ll try to go without it when I can.
As a cab driver this comes up most often with regular customers. I’ll drive them home with GPS a few times, but once I notice that I’m going to the same destination regularly I’ll try to get there without it. One or two goes of getting directed there by a person instead of by my phone and I can usually drive straight back.
If I keep using GPS I could drive there dozens of times and still not immediately recall where it is.
I call it the “Google Effect”. If you know you can find information you need by typing “a certain phrase” into a Google search engine…your brain will “encode” those steps; often linking back on your other skills like using a computer and accessing Google.
TL;DR: You didn’t learn how to drive there. You learned how to type a piece of information into a piece of technology to get your answer.
Unless you force yourself to learn the route somehow; you’ll never learn it.
For that GTA Feeling!
GPS can be helpful during commute to avoid trafic and accidents. Also it can help find faster route that aren’t necessarily obvious even if you’ve been to the place 20 times.
Thissssssssss
Now I use Waze even when I perfectly know the route, so I can have an ETA, warnings for speed traps and other unexpected shit.
My ancestors are totally judging me over the fact that I have lived here 30 years and there’s still one particular area that I can’t navigate through without help. It’s this circular one-way route. Pre-GPS, I’d sometimes have to go around it 2 or 3 times before being able to escape. At this point, I’ve just accepted that I literally cannot correctly process this location. Might be something wrong with my brain, might equally be something wrong with the location. It does give off some eldritch vibes.
If it makes you feel any better, our ancestors probably also had no concept of one way streets or complex traffic laws.
That’s a good point!
