GPS makes you dumber

[pbrower2a]

(06-29-2017, 11:32 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Last night I saw this pickup (make that "peekup") stopped about 50 feet short of a light at the freeway on / off ramp intersection. Cars were going around it - I figured it was as break down. Strangely, the hazard lights were not on. As I too passed, I looked inside ... there was a Latino guy in his late 20s looking down toward his lap ... a slight blue glow projected upward. As I left the intersection I saw the "peekup" finally turned right and got onto the freeway. This is how some people now decide what to do at an approaching intersection.

Why not do what I do, which is to read a map beforehand? That's what we did before there was GPS. So let's say that I am going to a place where I have never been before. Let us say  "Seattle". Once I get to Chicago from the east I can take

I-94 to I-90, switching off at either Madison until I get to Billings and take I-90 to the west
I-80 west to the 80/84 split west of Ogden and Salt Lake City, I-84 west into eastern Oregon, I-82 north and west through Yakima, and finally I-90 to Seattle
I-90 all the way

.... If I feel a little more adventurous and want to see something of what semi-rural parts of northern Illinois and rural parts of southern Wisconsin look like I can take US 12 to Madison or pick it up again in the Twin Cities and go almost straight west (although it angles enough to go from South Dakota into North Dakota back to I-94 to Billings and I-90 to Seattle- which would take me through some country that I would otherwise never see. Or I might select a route that has the side effect of giving me a route to the Grand Tetons and/or Yellowstone.

Not knowing Seattle, I would definitely need a map for it.

GPS is a poor substitute for thinking. Maybe not as bad as watching FoX Propaganda Channel, but pretty bad, on the whole.