• Hirom@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • JCreazy@midwest.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s because infrastructure has gotten so damn complicated to keep up with capitalism and growth of the economy. Things aren’t simple anymore. You can’t just turn right. You have to get into the third lane on the right hand side of the road but not too early because then you’ll get off on an exit.

      • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        i mean i suppose you’re technically correct, but the answer is more fundamentally that cars are absolutely terrible as a mode of transport, and anything else is much easier to navigate with.

        you need like 5 cars to create traffic, with pedestrians it takes hundreds of people in a limited space to do so.

  • frog 🐸@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • edric@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I still use maps even on familiar routes so it can divert me in case of unforseen events like accidents or road closures.

    • enki@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      This right here. Traffic is a shit show in my city, my usual route could add 20+ minutes if there’s an accident or lane closure, so I always check before I leave.

  • TDCN@feddit.dk
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    1 year ago

    I always use it because the speedometer on my car shows way too much and is analog and I prefer a digital speedometer and that’s available in the GPS. Also live traffic updates is a must in my city unles you want to get stuck for 30 minuts extra.

    • Ubettawerk
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      1 year ago

      Is there a privacy filter? Do they see every every family member at once or do they get to choose? I have so many questions about how this works…

  • gregorum@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, well, we have antibiotics and smartphones and the internet. Suck it, ancestors!

  • Dumbkid@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    I almost never use gps but that’s mainly because my car doesn’t have it and I have no mount for my phone. GPS on a phone in a cup holder is not ideal. I just drive in the direction I think stuff is in, usually works out

  • millie@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Melody Fwygon@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    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.