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.

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.

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.

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.

I have noticed two types of GPS hiker

[Chrisq]

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.