Wazzup Pilipinas!
GPS is everywhere: in cars, in phones, in laptops, in trains etc. We can take it for granted, and we will do increasingly as it becomes a more and more common element of daily life and travel, but the amount to which it has shaped our very understanding of travel cant be overstated.
GPS is unambiguously helpful: the number of times that we turn to it to orient ourselves in situations as disparate as hiking and trying to find the local shop, is incredible. It is also packaged nowadays with an incredibly intuitive user interface. But what are the ways in which it has changed the way we travel? Lets find out.
Negates The Danger Of So Many Situations
Previously, going for a walk through a forest could be considered a highly trepidatious adventure, that required some real orienteering skills. However,
GPS tracker makes it a walk in the park (or forest?). Plus, GPS negates the danger in so many other situations. Getting into a car crash on an unknown road no longer means desperately trying to explain what the last landmark you saw was to the emergency services. GPS handles that for you.
Increases Our Reliance On Smartphones
“GPS is currently most user friendly when packaged inside of a slickly designed app for your smartphone, notes Mark Channing, tech writer at
Write My X and
Brit Student. As if we need more excuses to be hooked on our smartphones, having this invaluable ability to track ourselves and find locations with ease in our smartphones makes all of us that bit more connected to our phones.
Allows Us To Be Found A Lot Easier
As mentioned above, in regard to the emergency services, the ability to be found as well as to find has its positives and benefits. On the one hand, the emergency services can use it, either an ambulance finding you in a remote location or the police tracking a criminal. On the other hand, it can lead to serious invasions of privacy. Again, this could be from the government, companies, organizations or just your creepy ex. Either way, its not always pleasant knowing you can be tracked at any time.
Makes Us Far Less Able To Orienteer Instinctively
Sooner or later, we will find ourselves mapping our routes everywhere. Human beings have recorded, instinctual orienteering in our DNA. Some humans, as you have probably noticed, are far better at directions and using a map than others. But the more we all get sucked into always relying on the phone, the more likely it is that we as a species erode our sense of direction.
It Damages Our Memory
“The hippocampus, the seahorse that stores our memory in the brain, shrinks if under-utilized and flourishes with training. Taxi drivers who still learn their routes by heart, for example, have powerful hippocampi, explains Rod Stuggart, travel blogger from
1 Day 2 Write and
Australia 2 Write. For similar reasons as above, our memory is affected by not being relied on. If we never have to remember routes and directions by heart or with the help of rudimentary maps, our memory functions for this part of the brain will naturally decay.
Conclusion
So, there you have it. It is definitely a blessing and a curse and the results of which of those two sides win out wont be known for, potentially, hundreds of years. That being said, dont worry too much. Your reliance is unlikely to be at 100%. Next time you head out for a walk, just leave the Maps app closed for a change!
Adelina Benson is an email marketer and writer at
Academic Brits and
Origin Writings. She develops marketing strategies, edits and proofreads company emails. In her free time, she loves to blog to help people reach their full potential at
PhD Kingdom. She is also a keen orienteering and mountaineering expert, with a passion for travel.
Ross is known as the Pambansang Blogger ng Pilipinas - An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Professional by profession and a Social Media Evangelist by heart.
