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How Can Digital Navigation Affect Your Brain?

by Amar Toor on May 5, 2010 at 08:10 AM

gps device navigation
As navigation technology has become more sophisticated, and more easily accessible, people have become increasingly dependent upon GPS and online maps in finding their ways around town. But according to some, your GPS may be doing a lot more long-term harm than short-term good.

As former American Demographics editor Brad Edmonson tells NPR, "Getting directions from a computer is like having a conversation on Facebook: It usually works, but there is also a good chance that you'll miss something important. The computer doesn't give you the context." So how can GPS systems contextualize? To many, the answer is social networking. The maritime industry has already incorporated blogs into its framework to help ship captains navigate the high seas, and more truckers have begun embracing tools like Dash Express, which combines navigation capabilities with real-time Internet news feeds and social networking.

The overarching question, though, is whether humans are neurologically hard-wired to follow directions, or whether we're better served by first familiarizing ourselves with our surroundings, and establishing a clearer idea of where we're actually headed. According to brain researchers, most people choose one of two approaches: using spatial strategy and finding their way using a map, or opting for the stimulus-response method, which includes following GPS instructions and trial-and-error testing. And as people become more reliant upon digital navigation systems to find their ways home, some experts are concerned that our collective ability to read maps may erode over time. More specifically, neurologists worry that dependence on GPS could lead to increased atrophy in the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory. Many studies have already linked a shrinking of the hippocampus to an increased occurrence of dementia, a conclusion that should give pause to older Google Maps users.

It's pretty clear that early humans weren't using foursquare to find the best place to hunt mastodons, and that the human brain, in its natural form, probably isn't designed to blindly follow navigational instructions from a smartphone. But then again, the human brain today does a lot of things that aren't entirely natural. Positing the long-term risks of digital navigation might be enough to raise awareness or concern, but as long as humans have the ability to instantly map out their routes with the tap of a finger, it's unlikely that it'll lead to any behavioral change. [From: NPR]

Tags: brain, dementia, googlemaps, GPS, mapping, navigation, neurology, top, web

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