Back in the days of paper maps we never lost a visitor, but now it happens repeatedly. Even to folks who have visited us before (that is, before they bought a sat nav). How has the sat nav changed our perception of the places we travel through? What is the difference between following instructions and reading a map?
Where we used to move mindfully through a wide landscape of choices and decisions we now hurtle through a tunnel of digitally voiced instructions. There is no room for the side-track and no need for the spontaneous. Indeed, a spur of the moment detour leads to the science-fiction scenario of the computer squawking at you to “turn around as soon as it is safe”.
Open the pod bay doors, Hal.
I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.
Those of us who live in urban areas have little chance to experience the natural world at the best of times. Everything from double-glazing and air-conditioning to television documentaries serves to keep our experiences twice-removed. Now, even when we're in it, the wider countryside is defined as a set of destinations that we're locked in to arriving at, “guided” by a tinny voice from the dashboard. Anything on the way is in the way.
Take a look at an OS map of the area around Stonehenge for example. A glance shows that we’re knee deep in prehistoric earthworks for miles around. This incredible richness was distilled for me recently by my (rented car) sat nav as “in 200 yards turn right onto the A344”.
A whole world of experience: history, geography, geology, the environment and landscape reduced to a list of left and right turns. Discovery is written out of the plan; no one gets happily lost.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote that “to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive”. With the sat nav, the only point of the journey is arrival. Can we still travel hopefully?
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"I'm late, I'm late," said the rabbit, "I'm late for a disappointment."
"Don't you mean an appointment?" asked Alice, pedantically, "I've never heard of anyone being late for a disappointment before."
The White Rabbit pulled his satnav from his waistcoat pocket and peered at it. "No, it's definitely a disappointment. And I'm late!"
And with that he disappeared down a rabbit hole.
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Fab Post! I hate sat navs, I have one for work which is required for surveying trees next to the electricity network as you start surveying at a transformer which has a number. We have no maps with the transformer numbers on, that are usually on a pole in some field in the middle of no where but the sat nav can take you to it by typing in the number.
ReplyDeleteIn my personal life I like to revert to my maps. Map reading is a skill I greatly treasure.
We also use our OS maps whenever possible for the additional features they contain and have had many an interesting side trip thanks to using them.
Really like your blog and I love your blog title!! Bye for now!
Thanks Dancin',
ReplyDeleteI agree. Sat navs are undoubtedly useful (love 'em or hate 'em!) and the last thing I am is anti-technology (this is after all a blog, on t'internet, mostly written on my iPhone).
This post caused a whole argument elsewhere about how one technology was "better" than the other... or not, sort of like the "debate" about windows or mac.
I should point out here that it emphatically isn't like that at all: in terms of process windows and mac are virtually identical. Map reading course planning and sight navigation are completely different mental processes to following instructions.
My suspicion is that following instructions removes us from some form of interaction with our environment that we previously had.
I wonder if you took a group of people who had used satnav to drive to a location and a group of people who had used a map and roadsigns, and you asked them all to do the same drive again without any aids who would be more successful at arriving?
Would that be interesting... or maybe I'll go back to watch some (organic, low VOC) paint dry. :-)
Hello! I think that would be very interesting (do you think there's a grant in it?!?!?). One of the things I hate about the sat nav is that you do stop paying attention to where you are, for a start in addition to driving you now have voice commands to absorb and a small electronic map to read. I have to keep an eye on that as well as listen to the voice as sometimes the map and voice dissagree!
ReplyDeleteAnyway my point is that I would have great trouble driving to anywhere I had been via sat nav only by memory, where as once I have driven somewhere using a map and studying the map a little in advance I can pretty much do it from memory, obviously as long as it is not too complicated and does not involve any major cities!
Although our road signs are not that bad and you can rely on them to get you where you want to go in cities a lot of the time, its just the other cars that get in your way then!
And there is of course your sense of direction and ability to assess the greater landscape around you to aid navigation. All skills I have personally learnt since I have been driving and skills I greatly value which is why I fought against having a sat nav for so long.
I don't know if we are ever going to face a global catrastrophe, in our lifetime anyway, where all technology ceases to work and we are left relying on our survival skills but I do worry we won't know how to get anywhere without that little voice, we wont know what food we can eat once the supermarket stuff has rotted, we won't be able to light fires once the matches and lighters have run out...that kind of stuff!!
In some ways maybe one would be good for us though, to take us back a few steps and make us remember what we are capable of. Although there are many examples of that through history where we have had to relearn complex skills and re-acquire knowledge. If only necessity was not the mother of invention.
Gosh I could really rant on, what a thought provoking person you are! Anyway back to Monday chores, I have dogs to walk and a load of washing to do!
Bye for now!