Spatial Awareness: Are Smartphones Making Us Dumb?

My clunky Samsung phone has a GPS navigator function. I don't use it all the time, so it's a pay-per-usage situation for me, and it's cumbersome enough that you'd never be tempted to fuck around with it while you're driving, but once or twice I've been a passenger and we needed directions, and it worked OK then.

Exit 14, 14A, 14B or 14E?

This happened to me once, and one of the directions was wrong. A simple "left" that should have been "right" (or the other way around). I was lost in some remote part of upstate New York, late (as in: almost midnight) on Hallowe'en night. I finally had to find someone who still had a light on and ask to use their phone. (This was 30 years ago; cell phones were not at all common.) I wasn't more than about 10 miles from where I was supposed to be, but I sure wasn't going to find it without better directions than that.

I like people who can give complete, meaningful directions, with plenty of "backups" such as landmarks, names of streets, and so on, to make sure you are on the right track.

Yeah, those. And I'm thinking of the ones near the Goethals Bridge where, heading eastbound, the sign for the bridge exit (which is on the right) is on the left, so you have to shoot across the toll plaza to get on the bridge. Then there's the westbound exit for, I think it's the Garden State, that's under an overpass, in the right lane, pointing toward a loop leading out of the left lane.

There's also, I'm convinced, a black hole in the Oranges. I've known people to get lost there for days.

The method of directions Forbin describes is referred to as "dead reckoning." I forget why it is called that. IIRC, there was a study that women were more prone to use it than men. I forget why that was as well. It is kind of the blind person/driving a submarine version of finding your way around.

Hmmmmm... It was my sister who gave me those kind of directions...

Mapquest did that to me once. Had me go the wrong direction on one street, which was away from where I was trying to go.

Mapquest sucks ass. I can always come up with a better/faster/more direct route than that piece of shit site.

I am the same way. I can read a map fine and have no issues in a new area as long as I have one, but I can't do anything from memory. People are always frustrated with me. I'll get directions to someone's house and go pick them up, but I'll have to either read the directions again to get back or have them tell me where to go.

Ah, I fondly remember the Mapquest/Google Maps war.

We should never forget the millions of lives that had gotten lost.

Now don't get me wrong, I love that giving directions these days consists of telling someone the name or address of the place and letting them figure it out on their own. Preferably with a smartphone. I just hate to see it replace basic navigation skills.

I guarantee my daughters will know how to get around this earth, no electronics necesary.

Yes, but is the submarine on a conveyor belt?

The Ornages ARE a black hole.
I have a friend on Staten Island, and I ALWAYS have a moment of confusion getting onto the Goethals. And another one trying to remember how to get onto Richmond Ave after I'm over it. I went to his wedding, which was in a section of the island I've never been to. Trying to find my way back to the Goethals at midnight, I ending up going east, and all of a sudden there was the Verezzano in front of me. I think I screamed out loud to Mary " I AM NOT GOING TO END UP IN FUCKING BROOKLYN!!!!" and almost took out a fence exiting!

*Looks at a map of Staten*

Looks fairly straight forward to me

It bothers my girlfriend that I don't use her GPS. If we're going somewhere, I look up the directions and either remember them or if its complicated I write it down.

I will never again be lost and driving slowly through downtown at night while she tries to scroll her map.

It did to me too, looking at a map. Once you're ON the strange roads you've never been on before, at midnight, it's another story.

This.

There used to be a teeshirt that said "Welcome to Staten Island. Now go home."

The minute you get there, there are signs everywhere pointing you toward the Verrazano and Brooklyn, as if it's just around the next curve. The message is clear: If you don't live here, we don't want you here.

The geography works against you, too. There are these very high hills in the center of the island, and only a few windy roads to get over them. This is where the Old Money and the Mafia dons live...they particularly don't want you in their 'hood. They even succeeded in killing an off-ramp on the expressway because it offended their sensibilities. So to get anywhere, you have to go around.

I use my GPS way more than I really should, and definitely feel like I am not as good as navigating as I was a few years ago. Back when I did pizza delivery I knew the town like the back of my hand and got to the point where I could have half a dozen orders to take out and figure out the best order and route to take to get them all out almost instantly.

Now I instinctively use my GPS if I'm just going to be visiting a friend on the other side of town, really need to break that habit.

When I got on that highway the wrong way, and I rounded a bend, there was the Verezzano Bridge lit up like the bridge scene in Apocalypse Now and a big sign saying "Brooklyn." The feeling I got was that I was looking at the gates of hell.

I've always had good luck with Google Maps....except in Lafayette, LA. Google Maps doesn't work there for some reason.

On the way to the airport once, we conferred with the limo driver and decided to take a slightly longer routed that we knew had less traffic and fewer turns. His GPS screamed like a baby for him the exit and turn around for the first couple of miles. He finally had to turn it off.