This past week my boss sent me a cool article about hand drawn maps. It really struck home as it reminded me of a story about my Aunt and Uncle from a few months ago. My Aunt is in the process of building her family tree and they recently visited Eastern Europe with a hand drawn map of the town and location of her relative's home. The problem with the map was that it was missing a North arrow and because of this it took them two trips to find the correct location. But why does this even matter? Because hand drawn maps are becoming a tool of the past. If you own a computer you have probably at one time used Google Maps to find a location and also directions to get there. Computerized navigation is making it much easier to get around in the world but in the end I believe it will harm us more than help us.

If there is one thing I notice in my day to day experiences with others it is that we need more people who have a sense of spatial awareness. Personally I believe spatial awareness is on the same level as generic common sense. Seeing fire triggers the thought to not touch something, while hearing someone walking next to you should keep you from suddenly veering in their direction. It seems like there are more people in the world who for some reason cannot grasp these concepts and on the road it causes much more serious problems.

How often are you driving on a highway, and the person in the lane next to you suddenly decides to switch lanes and almost runs you off the road? Then the look they give you is one of pure surprise, their face saying "THERE ARE OTHER CARS ON THIS ROAD!?" Or how about when you see someone cut across four lanes to make an exit? For the most part these are people who do not grasp where they are in the world and the last thing that we should be doing is promoting that!

I remember eight years ago heading out to a rally event I would be working at for the first time. It was out near Palmdale, CA and I had no idea about the area. As I neared the city I spent the drive taking in the area and getting a sense of where I was. Eventually I made it to where I needed to be and began my first day at the event. Later in the day myself and another guy who was at the rally decided to get some dinner at McDonalds. He offered to drive and so we got into his brand new Mitsubishi Evo with navigation. Now here is where our minds differed. When I was driving in earlier that morning I had seen a McDonalds sign on the side of the freeway two exits before the one I needed. This other guy was busy paying attention to his navigation on the way in and was focused elsewhere. So once again he had to rely on the navigation to find where the McDonalds was. Not a big deal in that case, but the navigation kept him from mapping where he was in his mind.

And that is what GPS navigation is ultimately going to do to all of us. The masses will blindly follow the robotic chick voice from their home to the super market because they can't picture the world outside of their own home. It still boggles my mind when I see a friend use their navigation system to get to a restaurant they have been to countless times before. Do we really need to shut down our own senses this much? When does it just become sad that we can't find our way around in our own city?

And this brings me back to the hand drawn maps. With more people switching to computer navigation, will we lose hand drawn maps completely? Will some of those who are currently aware of their surroundings lose that important ability? And regarding that story I started with and the hand drawn map actually making things more difficult...will people get lost anymore? Will stories about making the wrong turn to find an amazing view become a thing of the past as well?

In the end I'm not a huge fan of navigation. I'll probably never purchase one and the most I'll be found doing now is double checking a route and traffic on Google Maps before I leave. Personally I have more fun trusting my own decisions and seeing where it leads me rather than having a computer tell me exactly what to do.