Geo-craziness

I'm getting a few calls from the media about the crazy GPS failures that are continuing to appear in the news.  The most common question is "how can people abandon common sense in favour of the readout from a machine that is obviously leading them astray?"  I have to admit that I don't have the easiest time with that question, other than to reflect on some of my own experiences where I've, for example:

-driven at least 20 miles out of my way because the GPS told me to, while thinking that it must be harbouring some magic shortcut that had never occurred to me.

-driven past my destination, knowing that I've driven past my destination, watching it go by, but being convinced by the GPS that we weren't quite there yet, so perhaps what I was looking for was not actually what I was looking for!

-experienced a moment of panic while driving on a dead straight highway to an obvious and easy destination because the batteries in my GPS died.  Even as I laughed at myself, I found myself pulling into the next gas station to grab fresh batteries.

I'm not sure that there's a single explanation for the GPS failures we're all hearing about in the news.  Many of them are caused by operator failure.  We type in the wrong destination or we misunderstand what the machine is trying to tell us.  Many failures are caused by the small inaccuracies that can creep into the readout because of the vagaries of satellite reception - things don't always work perfectly and sometimes an error of 20 or 30 meters can cause a single wrong turn and mounting confusion.

I think what fascinates me more than almost anything else though is our blind trust in these machines.  There's an interesting contrast with the compass.  There are many good stories about how good navigators wandering in the woods have come to mistrust their compass because it doesn't correspond with their mental map.  Yet when our GPS doesn't correspond with our sense of direction, we tend to sometimes abandon good sense and become slaves to the little pulsating blue dot.  Why the difference?  Is it because few of us really understand how GPS works, so we suspend disbelief and surrender ourselves to the magic of a little handheld unit communing with fancy satellites in outer space?  Or is it because a compass provides much less spatial support than a GPS.  A compass won't place you on a nice survey map -- it will only help you to use a map --mental or otherwise -- to sort out your position, but you still need to bring something to the game yourself.  Is it possible to design GPS displays that could support our wayfinding efforts rather than to replace them?  And if so, would anybody want one?  

Comments

[Michael D]

I distrust GPS navigators, but would find it useful for wayfinding to have my location pinpointed on a decently accurate and oriented smartphone map. The trust is necessary when you're relying on the thing to guide you. When the device is just showing where it thinks you are, it's empowering you with more information -- which information you verify while wayfinding.

[Brian]

personally, I like to scout out the directions ahead of time to get the map in my head and gain a general sense of where I will be heading... just in case I might need to make things up as I go. I think the biggest problem is when we abandon the preparation under the assumption that the machine can figure it out for us. in my limited experience, there are turns that come just after exiting tunnels (where your signal and guiding voice will disappear), tall buildings (in NYC the gps thought we were turning circles as the signal bounced off all the buildings) on top of many other issues we always talk about. there is little that can compete with simply having a map and being able to orient yourself to the land around you. why did we evolve these great cognitive feats anyway?the proper machine could outdo a human without much trouble, but for a hundred dollars or so, you're not likely to find that one.