GPS Makes You Stupid

[Runum]

I guess this is a gripe/observation.

I know some people have a better sense of direction than others. When mapquest came out, I loved it. I could print the maps to get me exactly where I want to go. Google and others jumped on board and the more the merrier.

Then came GPS systems. I never had one, never wanted one. My 51 year old GPS system has worked well all these years.

So I have a teen daughter and I get her one to ease my fears. I also get my wife one because she really does get lost.

We took a trip to Galveston last week. I decided to do the GPS thing and let it navigate. What a frustrating hunk of junk. I have been going to Galveston for 25 years and I have never gone through some of the roads that thing has led me on. We turned it off to come back and had no problems.

Now my kid is trying to get home before the storms hit and the piece of junk has her lost out in the middle of nowhere.

I'm supposed to take a cross country trip next month. Was planning on using the GPS to help me out. Not so sure now.

I just cannot blindly follow the thing's directions. Am I too biased against it to let it work or does it frustrate others here?

 

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[Runum]

Kid just got home. 1 hour trip took 1 hour 40 minutes. I guess I should be glad it got her home.

 

[oddball]

Lots of people I know hate on GPS's but I like them. I never rely fully on them though. I always look at a map to get an idea of where I am going and what roads I will take. Then I look at the way a GPS takes you and decide if I want to completely follow it or not. It will recalculate if I decide I want to take a different road or what not. The problems come when people rely 100% on them and dont have a clue what they are doing except turning when it says to.

 

[Inphinity]

It also depends on which brand / model you get too, imo, as I have seen some (typically cheap quality ones) that calculate the most unlikely routes, yet others (Tomtom, I'm lookin at you) have shown me better ways to get around an area I've been driving in for 5 years.

 

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[cluby]

I totally agree, it really depends on the brand. I'm going with Tomtom too and it has always helped me to get to the places I wanted.
But I also agree on the fact that technology makes us think less, I also read this article in the Washington Times a few weeks back....

 

[hatterasguy]

I don't have any issue with them on the road, the GPS in Mercedes seem to be pretty good. Never lead me astray, even my cheapo $100 Garmin is pretty good. I have looked at a lot of real estate with that GPS.

On the water they can be dangerous, their is a thing called death by GPS. People assume the charts are correct which is sometimes a dangerous assumption!

 

[Excalibur]

I have a Garmin and every once in awhile it messes up and doesn't land me anywhere close to where I wanted to be. But overall it's been a good tool for me. The navigation on my Blackberry is pretty good as well.

Being that I do scrap metal on the side it's a great tool for finding places I've never heard of.

 

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[biophase]

During a conversation between me, a 20yo girl and a ranger, the ranger said that more people are getting lost hiking these days than before because they are using their Iphone GPS to navigate while hiking and it would run out of batteries and they would be lost. The 20 year old girl's solution was the bring an extra battery.

That one answer shows you the mindset of people and GPS devices.

I asked what if the 2nd battery runs out too? She said to bring 2 extra batteries. I said, ever thought of a map and a compass? She said she didn't know how to read a map.

 

[biophase]

Good ole compasses

My recent trip to Prague made me realize that even in the city, you really need a compass. Many times we would come out of the subway and have no idea what direction we were facing. A map is no good if you don't know what direction you're facing. We would figure out what intersection we were at but we never knew which direction to walk. We had to use the sun to determine east or west, but at noon it wasn't really reliable. I would have never thought of packing a compass on a city vacation in the past.

 

[futhey]

I love listening to people complain... I wish there was a forum category where people just complained about things. I would call it "Find the Fastlane"...

But I agree with the general assumption cluby is putting forth: Technology is keeping our children from learning to think. (Calculators, Google, GPS, etc.) - It amazes me what my nephews can't do because it's become obsolete!

 

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