Is your map app destroying your brain?

 I use GoogleMaps on nearly a daily basis, despite being a fan of paper maps. (See But I miss paper maps.)

As Blue Skunk readers may remember, I have been doing a lot of volunteer driving for a nonprofit that supports senior citizens.* Three to five times a week, I give rides to people who can no longer drive to a medical appointment, to a hairdresser, or to a grocery store. Living in a fairly large metro area (Minneapolis-St Paul), I am constantly driving on unfamiliar streets to unfamiliar destinations. The Twin Cities seems to have one health care facility for every two citizens just to add to the confusion.

So GoogleMaps is very helpful indeed. My phone connects to my car’s dashboard monitor using Android Auto and a little Bluetooth receiver. I can watch the app in real time while driving. Much like having a human navigator, it tells me where to turn. But it also shows me the speed limit and warns me of potential traffic problems ahead. As I tell my passengers, my AI overlord doesn’t always show the shortest route, but it always shows the fastest route. And it is usually dead-on predicting the ETA. To say I have grown dependent upon GPS may be an understatement**.

So I was a bit alarmed when I read in last week’s newspaper:

…recent studies suggest that ceding the planning and execution of daily travel to global positioning systems can exact a cognitive price. That is, when GPS use becomes habitual, it’s not just the skills associated with reading a map that get rusty… the hippocampus, an ancient structure located deep in the brain, behind the ear and near the base of the skull…oversees spatial orientation and memory, is key to planning and decision-making and appears to play a role in our ability to imagine the future. …recent research suggests that we stop exercising that important part of the brain when we rely on GPS. “Ask the Doctors” Mankato Free Press, 1/8/2024

So, what to do? Revert to old paper maps - or simply hope the cognitive decline is not too fast and not too steep?

I am not sure it has to be an either/or proposition. Before each trip I take using GoogleMaps, I look at the complete route. The area’s major highways and streets are familiar to me and I can usually get close to my destination without using either a paper or electronic map. I sort of know in my head, the general route I will be taking. I don’t see much difference between looking at it on paper or on a screen. 

I also often rely on my clients to give me directions. Some of these folks have been residents of their neighborhoods for decades and have been going to their doctors or supermarkets for many years. They can direct one on a preferred route. I have one woman who was a former taxi driver and enjoys traveling the smaller streets, avoiding the major thoroughfares. No problem.

And finally, traveling on extended road trips while on vacation is a great opportunity to return to paper maps and practice one’s skills in using them - and pump a little oxygen into the hippocampus. When my friend and I take a road trip, the passenger usually sits with the Rand-McNally or state road map on their lap, tracking the trip's progress. We see it as a challenge to not consult the GPS at all. Growing up with printed maps, we usually do rather well.

So despite the potential danger of over-using my GoogleMaps, I will continue to do so. Recognizing, of course, this is simply one more way that AI will come to dominate my pathetic, biological life…

*I joke to my first time clients that they should relax - the company requires that I bring back at least 80% of my riders alive. Some laugh; some look a little alarmed.

**This applies to relying on GPS when I hike and bike as well.