Is GPS an orientation killer?
February 6, 2012 by Yuval Brisker
A recent article in the NYTimes asked the question – do GPS devices reduce our ability to self orient? I have asked myself this same question many times as I’ve travelled the world, relying on and marveling at how my Google Maps has helped me navigate unknown places with ease…but with no sense of where I really am in the more traditional geo-spatial sense.
In order to definitively answer that question all you need to do is to get stuck without any connection to GPS in a foreign city on your way to a meeting when you had completely counted on it in advance or worse be in the middle of a GPS navigation and lose connection.
That’s exactly what happened to me a while back in Cologne, Germany. I had arrived there for an important dinner meeting and got off the train at the main railway station. I had my Android with built-in turn-by-turn Google Maps directions with me – this has been a reliable, effective and cheap (i.e. free) provider of voice-activated directions for me since it was launched. I loved that exclusive Android application and used it a lot.
Upon my arrival in Cologne, I set off in the direction of my meeting (as I had last identified it on GMaps) and wandered into the maze of winding cobblestone streets before I realized that I was not connected to 3G and the map was not working.
It was night and there was no one in the street, I could not find any cabs and there I was…standing in the middle of the city without a mental map of the place and lost. It was an amazing moment for me when I realized just how much I had become dependent on the connectivity and the app on my phone. No sense of place or location…contrasted with a time that I used to know cities by heart after a day.
I finally found someone to ask and they gave me direction to where I needed to go…but it had a lasting impact on my sense of place and convinced me that I should always consult with or have a real map in my back pocket when I set out on a trip to a place I don’t know – so that I can again be really truly independent.
